Google and Roku are trapped in a contract dispute, with YouTube TV being the first to suffer: The streaming app has been removed from Roku devices. Amid a contract dispute between Google and Roku, YouTube TV has been discontinued on Roku devices.
Each company has filed separate lawsuits against each other as the dispute has already arisen in the community. Roku is an industry leader in set-top boxes and produces an app for many smart TVs.
Google TV's live streaming service, YouTube TV, has been left from Roku devices worldwide.
Roku users who have already downloaded the app can still use it, but the company warned of removing the app, "because it will not be available for download on Roku devices" from Friday. The ability to sign up for a new account has also been terminated.
The reason: The contract dispute between Google and Roku, in recent days, has become a hot topic in the community.
"Google is trying to use its YouTube position to force Roku to adopt dietary, anti-competitive and anti-discrimination policies that will harm Roku and our users," a Roku spokesman told The Verge on Monday.
"Roku is often involved in these types of tactics in their discussions," a Google spokesman said in response. "We are disappointed that they chose to say nonsense while we continued our ongoing discussions."
This is not the first time that Roku, which dominates the high-end boxing market and has produced a system used by millions of smart TVs, has big heads for a great app maker.
The HBO Max is notoriously invisible to Roku when it was launched, and has been unavailable for months, as the two companies negotiated terms. It was finally launched on Roku more than half a year after the app was initially launched.
"We are disappointed that Google has agreed to our agreement that YouTube TV distribution has expired," Roku's representative said in a statement sent to Insider. Regarding the ongoing contract dispute between the two companies, the statement said Roku did not seek further funding from Google.
"We only asked Google for four simple commitments," the statement said. "Firstly, not to exploit consumer search results. Second, not to want access to information that is not available to anyone else. Third, not to use their YouTube power to force Roku to accept hardware requirements that will increase consumer costs.
In response, Google called Roku's claim "baseless and false" in a statement sent to Insider. Roku used the YouTube TV contract, "as an opportunity to negotiate a separate agreement involving YouTube's core app, which will not run until December," Google said in a statement. The full statement is available on the Google blog.
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