from Hacker News

YouTube's Legal Team sent me a letter [video]

by harporoeder on 5/2/24, 10:33 PM with 120 comments

  • by Something1234 on 5/3/24, 1:56 AM

    Here's the funniest part!!!!

    The app is on a .app TLD, and that's ran by google. So theoretically google just pull the domain registration. I wouldn't put it past them. Hooray for vanity domains!

    https://get.app/

    He needs to get better about posting the link to whatever he's talking about so I can read ahead and be more informed.

  • by donatj on 5/3/24, 1:20 AM

    Can someone give me the TL;DW? I don't have time to watch this right now

  • by fallingsquirrel on 5/2/24, 11:14 PM

    (IANAL) Seems like the right response would be something like:

    > We have no record of ever entering into any agreement or business relationship with Google. If our records are mistaken, please send us a copy of the contract you believe we signed.

    Google are not the police and they shouldn't be able to enforce their arbitrary terms on other companies just because they exist on the same internet.

  • by Exuma on 5/3/24, 12:21 AM

    I love black cats

  • by pennybanks on 5/3/24, 1:53 AM

    guy is a fear monger for his followers. but im sure hes popular here

  • by whydid on 5/2/24, 11:01 PM

    Louis is great at everything except brevity.

    Not my app, here's a summary: https://www.summarize.tech/youtu.be/dqTYg6vnQvw?si=PLdzW5-ew...

  • by Manuel_D on 5/2/24, 11:15 PM

    TL;DR: Rossmann's team is developing Grayjay, a 3rd party YouTube (and other sites) client. Like Vanced. This makes YouTube unhappy, because they don't want 3rd party players which often do things like disable ads and telemetry.

  • by blackeyeblitzar on 5/2/24, 11:18 PM

    I’ve said these about other platforms as well, but we need to heavily regulate large social media and content platforms like YouTube. They should not be able to arbitrarily demonetize, censor, shadow ban, or ban any content or users, which is where they are going unless Louis Rossman bends the knee. They also should not be allowed to operate in anti competitive ways like we see here. These big tech companies and social media platforms are too big and play too important a role in our modern society to just do whatever they want, and we should be treating them more like a utility. Alternatively, let’s split up all these big companies like Google and heavily tax all businesses that earn more than $10B in annual profit. Or both.

  • by Nextgrid on 5/2/24, 11:16 PM

    Unfortunately this response (as well as the previous one) is quite childish and doesn't address any of the points Google is making.

    I can only assume their legal team in the background advised them that they do not believe Google will take action (probably because of antitrust fears, etc) and thus no actual response is warranted.

    If I was them I'd actually provide a constructive response arguing that their app is just like a browser (not too dissimilar to Google's own Chrome) and doesn't seek consent from the platform owner just like Chrome doesn't seek consent from the visited websites.