Google Will Block Access To Its Autocomplete API On August 10

An anonymous reader writes with news reported by VentureBeat that Google will be discontinuing developer access to its unofficial Autocomplete API, as of August 10 of this year. A snippet from the article: Google currently supports more than 80 APIs that developers can use to integrate Google services and data into their applications. The company also has unsupported and unpublished APIs which people outside the company have discovered and leveraged. One of those is the Autocomplete API. The company says it is making this move "in the interest of maintaining the integrity of autocomplete as part of Search," that it wants to "ensure that users experience autocomplete as it was designed to be used," and finally that "this provides the best user experience for both services." I'm sure many will disagree.

Comments

The moral of the story...

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

And the moral of the story is to never rely on anything Google offers to the public as it may disappear one day with minimal warning.

Re:The moral of the story...

[Dcnjoe60]

Except Google didn't offer it to the public. It is an unpublished API that is and was unsupported for external use.

I don't see the problem here.

Actually, they did offer it to the public. This was an undocumented API. However, like the undocumented maps API, it was exposed to the public. As such, it was offered, just not documented.

Don't rely on undocumented APIs

Google actually encourages people to experiment with their public but undocumented APIs as part of their strategy. However, however experimenting with and releasing a product based on it are two different things. Google has a tendency to throw things against the wall and see what sticks. Maps, definitely stuck and they could even monetize it. Likely, this API also stuck, or it wouldn't be news. However, it probably was being used in ways that they couldn't monetize. Which, is why double-speeak of trying to protect the integrity of what it was originally designed for (aka Google Search).

Of course, it is their API and nobody was charged anything to use it, so Google is free to do as they wish with it.

Re:As it was designed to be used...

[Octorian]

The problem is that because Google does it first and/or best and/or "sufficiently free for adoption", there tend to not be any well known competing products. As such, everyone ends up relying on Google offerings "by default" and doesn't scramble to create replacements until their hands are forced.

Of course maybe this means that its a good investment to build alternatives to all of Google's offerings, just waiting to take an onrush of new business the moment Google loses interest in them. Then again, that's probably far easier in theory than practice.

Re:To G "haters": What has Google ever done for us

[hairyfeet]

The reason people hate the "new" Google is because they actually liked the OLD Google, that is pre IPO.

The old Google was like this mad scientist company full of engineers just throwing out all these cool ideas and seeing what people liked, the "new" Google cares only about the stock price and I have zero doubt is no longer being run by engineers but by MBAs (Masters of Being Assholes) who show each other PPTs and say things like "our data shows that the crucial 19-35 demographic currently enjoys X", see how they tried to ram G+ down our throats because their data showed kids like Facebook. The old Google would have never done that, hell you used to have to fight for an INVITE to get to play with the newest Google stuff and people did, because it was nearly always cool and innovative takes on some idea, now its just another Charmin, a large corp cranking out products based on marketing data and that makes a lot of us sad pandas :-(