Google has blocked YouTube on Amazon's Fire TV earlier than expected amid growing rivalry between the two tech giants as their businesses continue to overlap.
The move is in retaliation to Amazon's refusal to sell some Google products that compete with the retailer's gadgets, and Fire TV devices now encourage people to access YouTube via one of the gadget's web browsers instead, the Dailymail reported.
"YouTube and millions of other websites are accessible by using a web browser like Firefox or Silk on Fire TV," Amazon was quoted as saying.
With its entry into India, late in 2016, Amazon’s Prime Video service was often criticised to be lacking on one key parameter – the ability to stream Prime Video content onto the big screen in our living rooms. Now with Youtube off the streaming device, their extensive video library takes a major cut.
Earlier this month, Google had warned Amazon that it would pull the YouTube app from Fire TV devices on 1 January, if the two firms could not come to an agreement on the access of Google's apps on Fire TV devices.
According to reports, Google has been trying to reach an agreement with Amazon to give consumers access to each other's products and services. But Amazon doesn't carry Google products like Chromecast, and Google Home doesn't make Prime Video available for Google Cast users and last month stopped selling some of Nest's latest products.
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"Given this lack of reciprocity, we are no longer supporting YouTube on Echo Show and FireTV. We hope we can reach an agreement to resolve these issues soon," Google’s spokesperson said.
"Google is setting a disappointing precedent by selectively blocking customer access to an open website. We hope to resolve this with Google as soon as possible," Amazon was quoted as saying.
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