
Amazon blocks Statsaholic - pg
http://www.webforth.com/2007/03/amazon-blocks-statsaholic
======
prakster
This should come as no surprise. All Startups that are using "legitimate"
means to get data (e.g. via APIs) are at risk. The API provider can block you
at any time. Here are other examples: \- In May 2006, Ebay blocked Rapleaf's
attempt at making seller reputations portable. Rapleaf was using Ebay's API.
\- In 1999, UPS and FedEx blocked all companies that were using their APIs to
display and transact best shipping methods. All of those startups were using
UPS and FedEx API. This happened again in Jan 2006, when UPS blocked
www.simpletracking.com and once again in late 2006, when UPS and FedEx blocked
startup www.RedRoller.com Their website is still up, but without UPS and FedEx
in there, it's evident that they are dying. Once again, RedRoller was using
FedEx and UPS API. \- Startups using Google API are subject to the same
issue..Google will block you as soon as you come in their radar screen. ...so
if you are planning to use APIs, figure out your plan B in advance!

~~~
brett
You would hope that companies would start to realize the advantage they gain
from everyone using their api. Especially apis that embed their brand (and
potentially ads) in other peoples pages. There are a lot reasons for api
providers not to pull nonsense like this. Amazon clearly does not look very
good here.

But ultimately, yeah, there's always some risk when you run off an api you
don't control.

------
danielha
"Update: It seems like Statsaholic wants to switch to other traffic data
providers. Compete.com and Quantcast.com have already shown interest in
providing their data."

Paul, you were very right about Amazon and their inability to foster, well,
anything. They could have found a way to embrace this since Alexa's interface
sucks (their data sucks too but that's something else). Now Compete and
Quantcast will easily become the more popular metric.

------
danw
If your entire app relies on the api of a another company you should expect
trouble. Not only can they cut you off at any point as has happened to
statsaholic but you'll be less reliable. You'll be affected by your own
downtime as well as the api providers. I saw this happen the other day when
last.fm released a new beta that included flickr integration. At the exact
time that they made the announcement the flickr search servers went down for a
few hours. Luckily they'd designed the pages to degrade gracefully and still
work without flickr being up.

Luckily if your a small startup you can adapt quickly and find another way :)

------
staunch
Alexa let their technology stagnate and now there are quite a few startups
about to run past them. Unless they buy out the competition Alexa will be
totally irrelevant very soon.

This kind of big company coldness is just accelerating their demise.

------
nickb
Be careful not to bet your whole company on someone else's data! Mashups
beware!

