A WAR between two of the world's biggest tech giants will lead to millions of consumers losing access to YouTube.
Users of Amazon's streaming devices Fire TV and Fire Stick have received notifications that the YouTube app will be unusable by the end of the year.
It is the result of a dispute between Google and Amazon which escalated in late 2015, when Amazon stopped selling Google’s Chromecast streaming adapter, which previously was the top-selling streaming device on Amazon.com.
Amazon has never sold Google’s Home smart speaker and later booted some of Google-owned Nest products. That came after Google blocked YouTube on Amazon's Echo Show in September.
Google has blamed Amazon’s unwillingness to strike deal with them for the move.
A spokesman said: “We’ve been trying to reach 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.
"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.”
Amazon hit back saying: “Google is setting a disappointing precedent by selectively blocking customer access to an open website. Echo Show and Fire TV now display a standard web view of YouTube.com and point customers directly to YouTube’s existing website.
"We hope to resolve this with Google as soon as possible.”
UK users of Fire TV and Fire Stick have received online warnings that the YouTube app will not be usable at the end of the year.
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