by Laurie Sullivan @lauriesullivan, January 2, 2013

The boxing gloves went back on again Wednesday when Microsoft publicly accused Google of blocking its Windows Phones from accessing YouTube metadata similar to the way it allows Google Android phones and Apple iOS iPhones.

Dave Heiner,VP and deputy general counsel at Microsoft, wrote in a blog post that "Google continues to prevent Microsoft from offering consumers a fully featured YouTube app for the Windows Phone," describing a continued lack of permission.

Microsoft said Google continues to abuse its market position and impede competition in the marketplace, even under U.S. Federal trade Commission scrutiny, by blocking users from searching for video categories, and finding favorites and ratings.

advertisement advertisement

The battle, however, has been raging for years through European and U.S. antitrust investigations. "We believed then, as we do now, that the future of competition in search is at stake in these investigations," Heiner said.

Of course, a Google spokesperson doesn't see it that way. She said the two companies have worked closely for several years to help build a "great" YouTube experience on Windows phones.

"Windows phone users can access all the features of YouTube through our HTML5-based mobile Web site, including viewing high-quality video streams, finding favorite videos, seeing video ratings, and searching for video categories," according to the Google spokesperson.

Heiner's post points back to Microsoft's "scroogled" campaign alerting consumers of what it calls undermining competitive business practices and misguiding consumers. "Google dismisses these concerns as little more than sour grapes by one of its competitors," he writes. "But the reality is that consumers and competitors alike are getting "scroogled" across the Web on a daily basis from this type of misconduct."