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Edit: [[[ This story is getting heavily flagged as well. http://i.imgur.com/LiUSpCy.png http://i.imgur.com/LiUSpCy.png Looks like the Google fans, employees a

Edit: [[[ This story is getting heavily flagged as well. http://i.imgur.com/LiUSpCy.png http://i.imgur.com/LiUSpCy.png Looks like the Google fans, employees and shareholders on HN with good karma can't let this story break on the day of Google I/O? And people accuse Microsoft of astroturfing! What is this then? If PG does not want to stop this blatant and continuous moderator abuse, he might as well declare HN a Google and Linux fiefdom so that the rest of us using other platforms and who can think for ourselves and are not Microsoft haters can stay away. ]]] Posted this story earlier and it got flagged off the front page. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5714520 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5714520 Reposting my comment here: This is the latest in a long saga. From a post from Microsoft in 2011: First, in 2006 Google acquired YouTube—and since then it has put in place a growing number of technical measures to restrict competing search engines from properly accessing it for their search results. Without proper access to YouTube, Bing and other search engines cannot stand with Google on an equal footing in returning search results with links to YouTube videos and that, of course, drives more users away from competitors and to Google. Second, in 2010 and again more recently, Google blocked Microsoft’s new Windows Phones from operating properly with YouTube. Google has enabled its own Android phones to access YouTube so that users can search for video categories, find favorites, see ratings, and so forth in the rich user interfaces offered by those phones. It’s done the same thing for the iPhones offered by Apple, which doesn’t offer a competing search service. Unfortunately, Google has refused to allow Microsoft’s new Windows Phones to access this YouTube metadata in the same way that Android phones and iPhones do. As a result, Microsoft’s YouTube “app” on Windows Phones is basically just a browser displaying YouTube’s mobile Web site, without the rich functionality offered on competing phones. Microsoft is ready to release a high quality YouTube app for Windows Phone. We just need permission to access YouTube in the way that other phones already do, permission Google has refused to provide. http://blogs.technet.com/b/microsoft_on_the_issues/archive/2011/03/30/adding-our-voice-to-concerns-about-search-in-europe.aspx http://blogs.technet.com/b/microsoft_on_the_issues/archive/2...

ok_craig 13y ago
The issue is that the app is not displaying ads, which is against the TOS.
- cooldeal 13y ago
  The issue that triggers that problem is that Google refuses to either give them access to the YouTube API like it does for iOS and Android or makes a WP app itself.
  - Someone 13y ago
    did for iOS (http://t.nbcnews.com/technology/apple-says-youtube-app-wont-be-part-new-mobile-software-927116 http://t.nbcnews.com/technology/apple-says-youtube-app-wont-...) There is a Google YouTube app for iOS, though.
    - CloudNine 13y ago
      Apple developed the original YouTube iOS app with Google's blessings and pulled it after Google released their own official version.
  - lern_too_spel 13y ago
    The API is JSON over HTTP. Getting permission to use it is a completely automated process.
    - cooldeal 13y ago
      And I would assume getting banned from the API is also a completely automated process. https://developers.google.com/youtube/v3/getting-started#quota https://developers.google.com/youtube/v3/getting-started#quo...
  - rbanffy 13y ago
    I guess the Windows Phone guys don't talk to their Xbox counterparts... http://venturebeat.com/2012/08/28/youtube-xbox-app/ http://venturebeat.com/2012/08/28/youtube-xbox-app/
    - MysticMan 13y ago
      So what? I think the XBox YouTube app was developed by Google, not Microsoft. http://support.google.com/youtube/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=3013407 http://support.google.com/youtube/bin/answer.py?hl=en&an... WP does not ban adding ads to apps. If Google made a competing game console, would be interesting to see if they would have withheld it like they do on Windows Phone.
mtgx 13y ago
Twitter and Facebook can do and have done the same thing to other 3rd party developers, too. This like saying Google is not on equal footing with Bing on social media integration, because it doesn't get the type of API level that Bing gets from Facebook. Does Google want to "maliciously" block Youtube from WP8? Yes. Does Facebook maliciously block Google from getting any of their deeper level API's? Yes. So now can we also stop pretending Google owes anything to Microsoft? I wish the situation for all platforms was different, too, and there was a lot more collaboration between them. But I also understand why Google is doing this. It's retaliation for all the crap Microsoft has done against Google over the past few years, too - the anti-trust lawsuit, the Gmail ad, the DroidRage, the Scroogle, the patent license extortion from Android (and Chromebook) makers, and on and on. So I can't exactly say I feel sorry for Microsoft, because they are not innocent, even though they try to play it like that in the media. But this situation will become worse for any user that isn't fully committed to one platform or another, and that's just the unfortunate reality of the tech war today. Maybe it will get better in a few years.
- recoiledsnake 13y ago
  In a number of comments on HN I get the impression that people believe Google to be a more "open" and less evil company and thus should be trusted more but here you're comparing them to other companies considered "evil" and saying it's okay for Google to behave the same way. Also, lack of social media integration isn't that important a feature of search engines. Also it is likely that UbuntuOS/Jolla/FirefoxOS/Bada also get the same treatment from Google?
  - wamatt 13y ago
    There used to be an understated, but strong implication, that Google is 'good', Microsoft is 'evil', and perhaps justifiably so: Microsoft didn't exactly make a good impression on geekdom during the 90's. These days however, and speaking from a purely subjective perspective, Microsoft appears to be slightly softer and humbler, whilst Google under Page appears to be confident, maybe even aggressive and certainly increasingly ubiquitous. It's the last part that concerns me most. Apple, Google and Microsoft however all pale by comparison when placed on the same scale as non-profit Mozilla Corp, in terms of openness and looking after our rights and freedoms. Personally I'm somewhat of a bannerless citizen, but at least in theory, that's an organization that could receive my support.
przemelek 13y ago
You see each service in Internet has something called Terms Of Service. In case of YouTube one of terms says that apps cannot skip ads. In other words it says that apps cannot steal from poor creators of materials. MS created app which is doing it. They ordinary steal money from ads from creators. People spent theirs time on creating content, uploaded it to YouTube, and now WP users thanks to MS will watch theirs work in way which will cause that creators will not get money from it. Does behavior of MS means that now anybody can download all MS products and start to use those products without paying?
- iamshs 13y ago
  So suppose i access youtube through Firefox and I have adblocker and a video download extension installed .....am I in violation of ToS? Also, I have AppleTV and I have never seen any ad on youtube video, so are they themselves helping me to steal content from creators?
  - CloudNine 13y ago
    AppleTV doesn't compete with Android so they don't care. Well, there is GoogleTV, but it's doing way worse than Windows Phone, so they don't care.
    - technoslut 13y ago
      I doubt Apple would do anything without Google's permission regarding this. Google probably has the same deal with Apple with the built-in YouTube app where there weren't any ads either.
  - iamshs 13y ago
    @cloudnine : But then it is the same app (YT), and same functionality being accessed. SO why is Google adamant on showing ads for WP users?
- przemelek 13y ago
  @iamshs not sure here, but I'm guessing that you are not breaking TOS. But app for displaying YouTube content needs to be OK with TOS for YouTube API. And this TOS says: II. Prohibitions Your API Client will not, and You will not encourage or create functionality for Your users or other third parties to: [...] modify, replace, interfere with or block advertisements placed by YouTube in the YouTube Data, YouTube audiovisual content, or the YouTube player; [https://developers.google.com/youtube/terms https://developers.google.com/youtube/terms]
clark-kent 13y ago
There are copyright issues involved because Microsoft needs direct raw access to the YouTube videos, this means that Microsoft can bypass the ads and other deals Google have made with their content partners. Apple and Tivo made deals with Google to be able to do this, Google has to decide if its worth it for them to make the same deal with Microsoft at this point. I personally don't think Google is being evil about it there's just a lot more involved.
CloudNine 13y ago
>Looks like the Google fans, employees and shareholders on HN with good karma can't let this story break on the day of Google I/O? And people accuse Microsoft of astroturfing! What is this then? Well, obviously this is a false flag attack by paid Microsoft astroturfers and shills! /s :)
- rbanffy 13y ago
  The depressing part is that they probably don't even pay their astroturfers and shills... Lots of volunteers.
Steko 13y ago
"If PG does not want to stop this blatant and continuous moderator abuse, he might as well declare HN a Google and Linux fiefdom so that the rest of us using other platforms and who can think for ourselves and are not Microsoft haters can stay away." I think an interesting project would be to reverse engineer the flag scoring and karma decay, scrape and offer an "unskewed HN" and something that shows most flagged topics or articles (maybe a flag weighted word cloud for last x days idk).
drivebyacct2 13y ago
Ironic that two stories, actually far more critical of Google with something more legitimate to complain about, outrank this story. I'd love to hear pg comment on if Google stories are really abused, mis-modded or flagged as you imply.
OGinparadise 13y ago
My bet is on Google employees. I get a good dozen or so downvotes from them when I post something negative about Google. Usually it happens in a short period of time, as if someone gave them marching orders. I have also noticed that Googlers aren't fans of saying "Disclaimer: I work for Google" but go straight into praising Google's Product A and Feature B as if they had no bias. "Google is good and Microsoft is evil" is getting a little tiring and IMO is no longer true. Google will do almost anything for a quick buck: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/jan/13/google-kenyan-rival-mocality-database http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/jan/13/google-keny... http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904787404576528332418595052.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405311190478740457652... http://money.cnn.com/2010/08/05/technology/google_verizon_net_neutrality_rules/index.htm http://money.cnn.com/2010/08/05/technology/google_verizon_ne... Just imagine what may hide in their black box algorithms as Google claims fairness an unbiased results.
- 11hour 13y ago
  Why was Microsoft evil? Because back in the day they hired only the best and brightest nerds and geeks. They had the same type of 'IQ test' interviews that Google does now. A company needs some code janitors and code monkeys, and others, to go along with the top coders. Google are an "us vs them" company now not a "great products" company and that's why they do these things like downvoting rings that lack integrity. That's just the tip of the iceberg, and it's going to get a lot worse.
  - rbanffy 13y ago
    > Why was Microsoft evil? Because back in the day they hired only the best and brightest nerds and geeks. No. Because they abused a monopoly position hurting competition, therefore artificially inflating prices and preventing the kind of progress we see now in non-PC segments that are not suffocated by them. Also, for extorting every Android handset maker with a bogus (and secret) list of patents.
    - saurik 13y ago
      Google has a monopoly on search in the US due to some early advances (letting them kick Yahoo, altavista, and similar early competitors to the corner) that now seems to mostly be maintained by both having sequestered some content by unfair licensing discrimination (such as YouTube in this example) and generally by "we have more of the web cached and indexed than anyone else" (a race they have a many years head start on, and barring some disruptive advance is probably going to be true for a long while). They are now using the money they make advertising on that search system (if you check their Q10 they don't actually get much money from third party adsense websites: first party inventory dominates) in order to build large numbers of "engh, good enough but not great" services that are impossible to compete against because Google just gives them away for free or even operates them at a loss... it really isn't that different. They are even now starting to "bundle" things together with their search platform (G+) to directly leverage their position to propel other products. This is especially clear as what really screwed Microsoft was trying to make certain everyone had access to a web browser that could itself be used as an application platform rather than having to pay license fees to a company (Netscape, if this isn't clear) that had such a large web usage marketshare that they were able to run roughshod over the W3 (to the point where their mailing list sometimes described Microsoft as the open hero that will save them; Microsoft even was providing their DTDs for public review, which impressed the crowd). Netscape used this position to make up features we still hate like presentation-oriented markup, to hold back the original CSS attempts by being unwilling to implement them, and to add tons of proprietary features to their JavaScript engine that they considered a killer feature that others had to bug-for-bug emulate. I mean: I look at the situation and find it surprising that anyone wouldn't think it isn't the exact same story playing out a second (arguably, even a third) time ("you either die a hero or live long enough to become the villian", etc.).
matwood 13y ago
The YouTube apps on my android devices is pretty poor (look at the comments on the play store). I usually just end up going to the website. Google is mad someone built a working app for YouTube.

ok_craig 13y ago

The issue is that the app is not displaying ads, which is against the TOS.

cooldeal 13y ago
The issue that triggers that problem is that Google refuses to either give them access to the YouTube API like it does for iOS and Android or makes a WP app itself.
- Someone 13y ago
  did for iOS (http://t.nbcnews.com/technology/apple-says-youtube-app-wont-be-part-new-mobile-software-927116 http://t.nbcnews.com/technology/apple-says-youtube-app-wont-...) There is a Google YouTube app for iOS, though.
  - CloudNine 13y ago
    Apple developed the original YouTube iOS app with Google's blessings and pulled it after Google released their own official version.
- lern_too_spel 13y ago
  The API is JSON over HTTP. Getting permission to use it is a completely automated process.
  - cooldeal 13y ago
    And I would assume getting banned from the API is also a completely automated process. https://developers.google.com/youtube/v3/getting-started#quota https://developers.google.com/youtube/v3/getting-started#quo...
- rbanffy 13y ago
  I guess the Windows Phone guys don't talk to their Xbox counterparts... http://venturebeat.com/2012/08/28/youtube-xbox-app/ http://venturebeat.com/2012/08/28/youtube-xbox-app/
  - MysticMan 13y ago
    So what? I think the XBox YouTube app was developed by Google, not Microsoft. http://support.google.com/youtube/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=3013407 http://support.google.com/youtube/bin/answer.py?hl=en&an... WP does not ban adding ads to apps. If Google made a competing game console, would be interesting to see if they would have withheld it like they do on Windows Phone.

mtgx 13y ago

Twitter and Facebook can do and have done the same thing to other 3rd party developers, too. This like saying Google is not on equal footing with Bing on social media integration, because it doesn't get the type of API level that Bing gets from Facebook. Does Google want to "maliciously" block Youtube from WP8? Yes. Does Facebook maliciously block Google from getting any of their deeper level API's? Yes. So now can we also stop pretending Google owes anything to Microsoft? I wish the situation for all platforms was different, too, and there was a lot more collaboration between them. But I also understand why Google is doing this. It's retaliation for all the crap Microsoft has done against Google over the past few years, too - the anti-trust lawsuit, the Gmail ad, the DroidRage, the Scroogle, the patent license extortion from Android (and Chromebook) makers, and on and on. So I can't exactly say I feel sorry for Microsoft, because they are not innocent, even though they try to play it like that in the media. But this situation will become worse for any user that isn't fully committed to one platform or another, and that's just the unfortunate reality of the tech war today. Maybe it will get better in a few years.

recoiledsnake 13y ago
In a number of comments on HN I get the impression that people believe Google to be a more "open" and less evil company and thus should be trusted more but here you're comparing them to other companies considered "evil" and saying it's okay for Google to behave the same way. Also, lack of social media integration isn't that important a feature of search engines. Also it is likely that UbuntuOS/Jolla/FirefoxOS/Bada also get the same treatment from Google?
- wamatt 13y ago
  There used to be an understated, but strong implication, that Google is 'good', Microsoft is 'evil', and perhaps justifiably so: Microsoft didn't exactly make a good impression on geekdom during the 90's. These days however, and speaking from a purely subjective perspective, Microsoft appears to be slightly softer and humbler, whilst Google under Page appears to be confident, maybe even aggressive and certainly increasingly ubiquitous. It's the last part that concerns me most. Apple, Google and Microsoft however all pale by comparison when placed on the same scale as non-profit Mozilla Corp, in terms of openness and looking after our rights and freedoms. Personally I'm somewhat of a bannerless citizen, but at least in theory, that's an organization that could receive my support.

przemelek 13y ago

You see each service in Internet has something called Terms Of Service. In case of YouTube one of terms says that apps cannot skip ads. In other words it says that apps cannot steal from poor creators of materials. MS created app which is doing it. They ordinary steal money from ads from creators. People spent theirs time on creating content, uploaded it to YouTube, and now WP users thanks to MS will watch theirs work in way which will cause that creators will not get money from it. Does behavior of MS means that now anybody can download all MS products and start to use those products without paying?

iamshs 13y ago
So suppose i access youtube through Firefox and I have adblocker and a video download extension installed .....am I in violation of ToS? Also, I have AppleTV and I have never seen any ad on youtube video, so are they themselves helping me to steal content from creators?
- CloudNine 13y ago
  AppleTV doesn't compete with Android so they don't care. Well, there is GoogleTV, but it's doing way worse than Windows Phone, so they don't care.
  - technoslut 13y ago
    I doubt Apple would do anything without Google's permission regarding this. Google probably has the same deal with Apple with the built-in YouTube app where there weren't any ads either.
- iamshs 13y ago
  @cloudnine : But then it is the same app (YT), and same functionality being accessed. SO why is Google adamant on showing ads for WP users?
przemelek 13y ago
@iamshs not sure here, but I'm guessing that you are not breaking TOS. But app for displaying YouTube content needs to be OK with TOS for YouTube API. And this TOS says: II. Prohibitions Your API Client will not, and You will not encourage or create functionality for Your users or other third parties to: [...] modify, replace, interfere with or block advertisements placed by YouTube in the YouTube Data, YouTube audiovisual content, or the YouTube player; [https://developers.google.com/youtube/terms https://developers.google.com/youtube/terms]

clark-kent 13y ago

There are copyright issues involved because Microsoft needs direct raw access to the YouTube videos, this means that Microsoft can bypass the ads and other deals Google have made with their content partners. Apple and Tivo made deals with Google to be able to do this, Google has to decide if its worth it for them to make the same deal with Microsoft at this point. I personally don't think Google is being evil about it there's just a lot more involved.

CloudNine 13y ago

>Looks like the Google fans, employees and shareholders on HN with good karma can't let this story break on the day of Google I/O? And people accuse Microsoft of astroturfing! What is this then? Well, obviously this is a false flag attack by paid Microsoft astroturfers and shills! /s :)

rbanffy 13y ago
The depressing part is that they probably don't even pay their astroturfers and shills... Lots of volunteers.

Steko 13y ago

"If PG does not want to stop this blatant and continuous moderator abuse, he might as well declare HN a Google and Linux fiefdom so that the rest of us using other platforms and who can think for ourselves and are not Microsoft haters can stay away." I think an interesting project would be to reverse engineer the flag scoring and karma decay, scrape and offer an "unskewed HN" and something that shows most flagged topics or articles (maybe a flag weighted word cloud for last x days idk).

drivebyacct2 13y ago

Ironic that two stories, actually far more critical of Google with something more legitimate to complain about, outrank this story. I'd love to hear pg comment on if Google stories are really abused, mis-modded or flagged as you imply.

OGinparadise 13y ago

My bet is on Google employees. I get a good dozen or so downvotes from them when I post something negative about Google. Usually it happens in a short period of time, as if someone gave them marching orders. I have also noticed that Googlers aren't fans of saying "Disclaimer: I work for Google" but go straight into praising Google's Product A and Feature B as if they had no bias. "Google is good and Microsoft is evil" is getting a little tiring and IMO is no longer true. Google will do almost anything for a quick buck: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/jan/13/google-kenyan-rival-mocality-database http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/jan/13/google-keny... http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904787404576528332418595052.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405311190478740457652... http://money.cnn.com/2010/08/05/technology/google_verizon_net_neutrality_rules/index.htm http://money.cnn.com/2010/08/05/technology/google_verizon_ne... Just imagine what may hide in their black box algorithms as Google claims fairness an unbiased results.

11hour 13y ago
Why was Microsoft evil? Because back in the day they hired only the best and brightest nerds and geeks. They had the same type of 'IQ test' interviews that Google does now. A company needs some code janitors and code monkeys, and others, to go along with the top coders. Google are an "us vs them" company now not a "great products" company and that's why they do these things like downvoting rings that lack integrity. That's just the tip of the iceberg, and it's going to get a lot worse.
- rbanffy 13y ago
  > Why was Microsoft evil? Because back in the day they hired only the best and brightest nerds and geeks. No. Because they abused a monopoly position hurting competition, therefore artificially inflating prices and preventing the kind of progress we see now in non-PC segments that are not suffocated by them. Also, for extorting every Android handset maker with a bogus (and secret) list of patents.
  - saurik 13y ago
    Google has a monopoly on search in the US due to some early advances (letting them kick Yahoo, altavista, and similar early competitors to the corner) that now seems to mostly be maintained by both having sequestered some content by unfair licensing discrimination (such as YouTube in this example) and generally by "we have more of the web cached and indexed than anyone else" (a race they have a many years head start on, and barring some disruptive advance is probably going to be true for a long while). They are now using the money they make advertising on that search system (if you check their Q10 they don't actually get much money from third party adsense websites: first party inventory dominates) in order to build large numbers of "engh, good enough but not great" services that are impossible to compete against because Google just gives them away for free or even operates them at a loss... it really isn't that different. They are even now starting to "bundle" things together with their search platform (G+) to directly leverage their position to propel other products. This is especially clear as what really screwed Microsoft was trying to make certain everyone had access to a web browser that could itself be used as an application platform rather than having to pay license fees to a company (Netscape, if this isn't clear) that had such a large web usage marketshare that they were able to run roughshod over the W3 (to the point where their mailing list sometimes described Microsoft as the open hero that will save them; Microsoft even was providing their DTDs for public review, which impressed the crowd). Netscape used this position to make up features we still hate like presentation-oriented markup, to hold back the original CSS attempts by being unwilling to implement them, and to add tons of proprietary features to their JavaScript engine that they considered a killer feature that others had to bug-for-bug emulate. I mean: I look at the situation and find it surprising that anyone wouldn't think it isn't the exact same story playing out a second (arguably, even a third) time ("you either die a hero or live long enough to become the villian", etc.).

matwood 13y ago

The YouTube apps on my android devices is pretty poor (look at the comments on the play store). I usually just end up going to the website. Google is mad someone built a working app for YouTube.