eBay Web API 
June 1st, 2006
We have been uber busy writing the old book and getting lots of JavaScript written these days so blogging has been on the backburner a bit 
I did get a chance to finally take a peak at some Web API’s today in hopes of finding one I liked to make a mash-up using our AJAX Grid product. I think that I might try out the eBay one since they have some good sample code and it should be real easy to integrate - plus the data is pretty well suited to a grid format of course. Aside from the actual API, the thing that had me most interested was their user agreement - which I surprisingly actually read!
The interesting part was where they say that:
You may not co-mingle, modify or display the eBay Content with the content of third parties … the eBay Content is segregated from non-eBay content, and the eBay Content must be presented in such a way that the eBay Content is visually separate (as with lines or color changes) from non-eBay Content (�eBay Area�); and no third party listings, information or other content of any kind may be combined with eBay Content or displayed anywhere within the eBay Area;
In this day and age of share and share alike in the new Web 2.0, that sort of license seems pretty draconian. However, I think that this behaviour is a great example of the difference between the old (circa 1998) and new webs (today); during the dark ages of the old web there existed what some might consider to be “real” businesses that have now grown to be the data providers - of course data or information is the fuel on which the new web relies. The fresh young face of the new web of hippie-free-lovin mash-up is built largely on the hard work of those companies that survived the first Internet bubble and have accumulated a large amount of _very_ valuable data. As Bill predicted back in the day - content is king. Of course Bill is still doing ok I am sure. Going forward it will be interesting to see if and how the various Web 1.0 (for lack of a better term) powerhouses start charging for access to all their tightly guarded data.
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This entry was posted on Thursday, June 1st, 2006 at 2:10 am and is filed under Web2.0, Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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June 2nd, 2006 at 4:14 pm
Hello Dave -
Thanks for looking to do an eBay Mashup. I would love to see one with your AJAX Grid product.
I’m not surprised you actually read the API license. Our lawyers do a good job of making us put it in front of you, in hopes that you’ll actually do just that.
Of course, in response, we do our best to make the lawyers write an agreement that’s as short and reasonable as possible.
Over the years, we’ve added and subtracted a number of sentences and sections (although, to be honest, largely subtracted) as various issues waxed and waned in importance and likelyhood. We used to have a number of crazy provisions about not co-mingling data in your database, for example, which we got rid of. We also eliminated all those pesky API call fees we used to have.
However, one of the sections we have kept is about co-mingling the display of eBay data. Our reasons behind this is that many eBay listings are in the auction format, so the buyer experience is quite different from other e-commerce sites. We’ve found that when we manage to set expectations up-front that a particular item is an eBay listing, then buyer satisfaction goes up and buyer confusion goes down. Otherwise, they can have a less than optimal experience, which is in nobody’s interest.
This is less draconian in practice as in appears in the license. For example, fatlens is one of our developers, and they aggregate data from a number of sites. If you click on the top “compare prices” button on the following page, you’ll see eBay and non-eBay items displayed in a normal table:
http://www.fatlens.com/main/query.php?query=ipod
This simple visual distinction is sufficient to satisfy the conditions of the license. So, it’s not as if the eBay piece needs to be completely shunted off into another area. I don’t know exactly what you were planning, but this may be good enough for your application.
As the concepts behind “Web 2.0″ continue to evolve, and as underlying causes become less of an issue, we’re always re-evaluating all the provisions in our licenses. It’s quite possible this will change in the future. However, maybe it won’t. I don’t really know.
What I do know is that we have a license that is both non-commercial and commercial friendly. API calls are free. If you go though our free and relatively easy certification process, you can get 1,500,000 API calls a day — which is far larger than most other Web services. And that we expose almost the entire eBay platform through 100+ API calls.
I think those are very compelling aspects of our service.
June 6th, 2006 at 7:47 pm
Thanks for the response Adam!
I agree that the eBay API is _definitely_ one of, if not the most, compelling around since it essentially provides access to what, for a lot of people, is the most important information on the Web.
Also, I think that the segregation of content clause makes perfect sense from a business perspective. I was facetiously trying to highlight the fact that yeah sure mashups are cool and fun but that data is seriously valuable for eBay!
I will definitely blog about our mashup when I get it done.
Cheers,
Dave