Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL)’s YouTube has scored another victory in court against a disappointed user. The bone of contention revolved around YouTube’s terms of service (TOS). As it turns out, users are finding that they can’t put YouTube down when it comes to interpreting the language of its TOS.
In what seems to reveal Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG)’s mastery of its various games, YouTube has humbled a user who sought to impute blame to it. It happened that Alphabet Inc’s YouTube deleted and relocated a video that user had uploaded on its platform. The company made the decision on the basis that the user, Jan Lewis of Remington Rider band, violated its TOS. In particular, the wrong that Lewis committed, according to YouTube, bordered on spamming.
Tough policy against spamming
The Company’s TOS strictly prohibits any form of spanning. As such, the company relied on its lengthy TOS document to shift Lewis’ videos, thus deleting comments and view counts in the process. Lewis felt YouTube didn’t act fairly and sued the company, hoping to compel it to bring back the view counts and comments on her videos that were lost. But an appeals court in California looking into the matter recently failed to side with her, thus landing her another defeat and earning Alphabet’s YouTube a sweet victory.
Hidden strength in YouTube
Beyond the loss or win of a court case, the push and pull between YouTube and Lewis highlight the hidden strength that Google has built into its video sharing business. It is no secret that legal battles can bring down a company, even as big as Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG). Perhaps that explains why Google carefully worked out TOS for YouTube not only to keep potential violators but also to team them a lesson if they happen to violate the TOS.
Warning to future violators
Any future users thinking of violating the platform’s TOS are increasingly getting lessons to learn from, and the platform should continue going strong.
Remodeling
Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG)’s Google is in the process of developing YouTube in another format. A subscription YouTube called YouTube Red was recently introduced, partly to help content suppliers make more money from their work and also push Google into the over-the-top video movement. For content suppliers, the rise of ad-blocking tools had started to threaten their income on the legacy ad-fed format.
