As Amazon continues to be locked in a big feud with Google, two recent trademark requests filed by Amazon suggest that the company could be planning to roll out its own video sharing platform that could directly challenge Google’s YouTube.
The Amazon/Google feud first surfaced last September when Google blocked Amazon’s Echo Show from streaming YouTube videos and a few weeks ago extended that ban to Amazon’s Fire TV, planning to officially pull YouTube from it on January 1st.
"We've been trying to reach agreement with Amazon to give consumers access to each other's products and services," a Google spokesperson said in a statement. "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."
However, on the same day that Google announced it was pulling YouTube from Fire TV, Amazon filed two trademark requests with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for the names “Amazontube” and “Opentube” according to TV Answer Man. And in the files, Amazon describes Amazontube and Opentube as providers of “non-downloadable pre-recorded audio, visual and audiovisual works via wireless networks.”
Amazon goes on to say that the services would “enable users to share content, photos, videos, text, data, images and other electronic works,” making it seem like the service would rely on users to upload their own videos, just like YouTube.
DomainNameWire has also reported that Amazon’s been registering lots of domain names like AlexaOpenTube.com, AmazonAlexaTube.com, and AmazonOpenTube.com.
It’s blatantly obvious that “Amazontube” or “Opentube” are very similar to YouTube; the names themselves could land Amazon into legal trouble with Google, but Amazon could just alter the names slightly and probably avoid any legal problems.
But it does appear that Amazon is trying to reach an agreement with Google, having just promised to return Chromecast to its retail line-up. So it’s not definite if anything is ever going to become of “Amazontube” or “Opentube”, but if something does, they could do some damage to YouTube, considering that a lot of YouTubers currently are fed up with the service.
