PS: If you do need to request a new API key, I reccommend when
describing the purpose of your use, you make sure to emphasize adding
links to Amazon to library pages. Which shouldn't be a lie, if you are
indeed doing that. I consider adding such a link a reasonable 'cost' of
using the API for it's other "side effects" too. If they ever required
me to _only_ include a link to Amazon and not to other vendors (as
Google sometimes tries to do in their terms), then I'd stop using it.
Tim Spalding wrote:
They're also tightened up the API in various ways, and renamed it the
"Amazon.com Product Advertising API." Although I know of no case when
Amazon has shut down a library, it would be hard for any to claim
their site had "as their principal purpose advertising and marketing
the Amazon Site and driving sales of products and services on the
Amazon Site."
Advertising
I think it's a terrible mistake for them. Their marginal cost is zero;
they don't need to do this. Data openness was a key factor in Amazon's
rise. And that was when thee were no other options. With viable other
options just emerging—Open Library, Google, at least—now is hardly the
time to make it less attractive.
Tim
On Mon, May 11, 2009 at 9:40 AM, Jonathan Rochkind <rochk...@jhu.edu> wrote:
The Amazon products API keeps changing it's name, and has just been changed
to Amazon "Product Advertising API" -- it's the one you use to look up books
in Amazon and get metadata for them, though.
It looks from an email I got from Amazon that ss of August 15th, you'll need
to cryptographically sign requests to this API, to have them responded to.
It looks like kind of a pain.
I think a bunch of people on this list may be using this API. Beware.
Instructions for how to cryptographically sign requests the way they want
can be found here:
http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/AWSECommerceService/latest/DG/Query_QueryAuth.html
http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/AWSECommerceService/latest/DG/rest-signature.html
Like I said, it's looking like a pain to me. There are lots of details to
get right. If you URI-escape not _exactly_ the same way they do, it's not
going to work. Etc.
Jonathan
