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  • Google said it would let users download the YouTube TV app through its main YouTube app on Roku.
  • The move skirted the blockade placed by Roku, which has called the behavior anticompetitive.
  • Roku removed the YouTube TV app last week due to a contract dispute.
  • See more stories on Insider's business page.

Roku called Google an "unchecked monopolist" in the latest development of a spat between the two companies, according to a statement shared with Insider.

The comment was made after Google announced on Friday that it would allow users to access the YouTube TV app through its main YouTube app on Roku's streaming platform, a move that Roku called "anticompetitive."

"Google's actions are the clear conduct of an unchecked monopolist bent on crushing fair competition and harming consumer choice," Roku said in the statement Friday.

Roku also said, "we have simply asked Google to stop their anticompetitive behavior of manipulating user search results to their unique financial benefit and to stop demanding access to sensitive data that no other partner on our platform receives today."

On April 30, Roku removed the YouTube TV app from its streaming platform because its deal with Google ended due to terms that Roku did not agree with. Those terms included what Roku says was a request from Google to share more sensitive customer data. Roku said it did not ask Google for more money as part of what would've been a renewed contract. It also told Insider last week it wanted Google to stop manipulating customer search results, among other asks.

"Google is attempting to use its YouTube monopoly position to force Roku into accepting predatory, anti-competitive, and discriminatory terms that will directly harm Roku and our users," Roku said last week.

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Google told Insider last week that Roku's characterization of the company was "baseless and false" and said Roku tried to "renegotiate a separate deal encompassing the YouTube main app, which does not expire until December."

As Insider's Ben Gilbert notes, Roku has been in similar standoffs with other major entertainment apps in the past. It took Roku and HBO Max months to negotiate terms that would allow users to access the app on the service.

Read the original article on Business Insider