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Comment by sharms | Hacker News Reader

After reading the entire article, this definitely impacts any interest I had to integrate with google maps, youtube or google app engine.

I wonder what the chances are they will change gmail terms the way they did to author (ie deceptively) and if I should look into other providers.

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You should be leery of building a business that piggybacks on any service, Google-owned or otherwise. The first question you should ask yourself if you build something on XYZ is, "What will we do if XYZ is no longer an option?" If you don't have an answer, find a new idea.

Playing devil's advocate, I would counter that many companies have successfully built themselves around 3rd party API's from Facebook, Twitter, Google etc...

One option would be to pay for better ToS (ex: an 'enterprise' version of the API - though Youtube does not seem to have such option).

None of those companies are mature, by definition (since none of those platforms have been around for long). Some of them have significant revenue, but would I buy stock in one (e.g., Zynga)? I don't think so. I consider the Facebook Platform a toy.

Sure, everyone should think about that, but there is a traditional way to mitigate some of the risks. It's called a contract. Very few services of any kind would exist if everyone just walked away.

My conclusion from all of this is that the web is not as different from earlier "platforms" as some make it appear. If I want to build on someone's service, I make a contract that sets out the rights and obligations of either side.

I'm not a lawyer so I wonder how ToS are related to contracts. Does google have the right to change the ToS unilaterally without notification or agreement?

If you're going to depend on one of these services for something serious, you should always have a plan B. Architect things so you actually can use your B plan, at least in theory, which means avoiding integrating to specific features.

YouTube - can you swap to Vimeo or a white label provider? Revver? GMail - have your real email (on your own domain) redirect there. App Engine - outlook not so good!

I don't see any deception here. There was no contract, nor promise made. Google had a free service. They didn't like how it was being used (probably by other sites) and changed the terms to something they liked better. It's their service; they aren't honor-bound to preserve other people's business models.

Would you say the same thing if Google thought it was so great that they started a competing product?

The part that bothers me is where he says they asked him a lot of detailed questions about his model in such a way that they planned on using the details for their own service. I don't see that as being a good thing in the least.

The lesson here is to never answer such questions. It's akin to having your company acquired by another, being asked to teach everything to the other company's guys, and then being fired.

Exactly

They didn't like how it was being used (probably by other sites) and changed the terms to something they liked better.

And that's fine. The deception was in not telling him about it and inducing him to continue down a path with no upside. It's similar to the GIF patent fiasco where Unisys deliberately avoided publicizing their patent until the format was entrenched. It may be legal, but it's scummy.

I'm not finding that in the article. They didn't change the TOS to trap Totlol, I'm all but certain. They changed it because of what they felt was best for the product (probably because of all the crappy link farms backed by youtube content).

And totlol just didn't notice. Again, it's a free service. It's not like totlol had a contract that was violated. They bet their for-profit company on Google's good will, and as it turned out Google didn't care so much about totlol's profits.

It might not have been a deliberate "trap", but the timing is very suspicious. Even if Totlol wasn't the primary reason they changed the terms, they should have notified him of the change since they were actively communicating with him at the time. No, they weren't legally obligated to, but not doing so is getting rather close to the evil line.

Isn't the simpler explanation just that the people communicating with totlol weren't the same ones responsible for the TOS change and that no one thought to connect the dots? It's not like google is a hive mind.

Why invoke conspiracy when mere inaction is a better explanation?

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