If a couple of trademark filings are any indication, e-retail giant Amazon may be working on its own YouTube competitor. The company has filed to get trademarks for AmazonTube as well as OpenTube, which clearly sound like the names of on-the-nose rivals to YouTube.

Expectedly, the trademark descriptions are pretty broad, but include everything that YouTube does.

This isn’t the first time Amazon has been rumoured to be working on a free video-streaming service. In fact, just a few weeks ago, the reports of a free version of Prime Video had reared their heads again. It is unclear whether Amazon is really serious about this or it is just trying to mess with Google as the trademark filings come at a time when both the companies are in the middle of a feud. Apparently, Google is not happy with the fact that Amazon had stopped selling Chromecast, Google Home, and Nest devices on its website. So, it first pulled support for YouTube from Amazon Echo Show and offered a silly excuse, but when Amazon tried to fix the app to accommodate that excuse, the search giant came with the real reason on why it is doing so. It later also removed the support for YouTube from Fire TV devices. Both the companies are reportedly in talks to fix this mess and Amazon recently restarted the sales of Chromecast on its platform. It is a mystery whether the companies are making any headway.

If the feud persists, Amazon’s version of YouTube doesn’t seem that out of the realm of possibility. The company has already provided the Fire TV users some respite by working with Mozilla to launch a version of Firefox browser for the Fire TV devices. Being a full-fledged web browser, it will be able to access YouTube.

Source: USPTO | via