Adsense API news

Anyone seen this :-

http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/sil...v/10701561.htm

Yeah I've seen this discussed quite a bit on SitePoint over the weekend and last week.

Scary stuff if ya ask me.

It's not an adsense API I don't think. I think it's mainly for adwords.

what i'd like is the all-clear to use Google's search API. I think that could make for interesting content/information sites..... unfortunately I think it's out of bounds :<

Its interesting to see Google expanding into newer and bigger areas, whilst its core operations suffer. I guess its probably just a shift to more profitable areas but I really see Google setting themselves up nicely to be overtaken by some new clever college kids.

Or by some old powerful business men.

I'm also disapointed and a little alarmed to see Google letting their core competency suffer like this while they keep trying to expand into new areas. This has been the downfall of many, many companies in the past.

Their business is search. I hope they focus on doing the best search.

Well as long as they aren't pinching from one department to feed another, then I don't have a problem with them concentrating on both. They have enough money and man-power to do both without any problems.

Google's results speak for themselves and many people have found their results getting poorer. Its difficult to search for something and not have atleast 2 or 3 out of the first 5 results be a directory site or another search like engine.

I used the search over the past month or so quite a lot when researching a new hifi system. I found the results to be pretty good. A few too many "price runner" / amazon type listings, but apart from that it gave me what I wanted.

The other thing that needs to be remembered is that advertising is mainly where google's revenue comes from. If they don't get that right, then they have no money to get anything right. But I don't think money is the limiting factor at the moment. Producing a good set of search results is just bloody difficult! :)