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Hello There,

Care to share the reasons for shutting down APIs, mainly the Translate API?

Thanks

I guess A LOT of webservices will be hurt.

Your new APIs are either pure bullshit or specially aimed to promote your own affiliates.

Thanks Google.

Tough call, but a reasonable rationalization in the case of the Books APIs - it would be painful documenting, maintaining, and supporting three different APIs for substantially the same functionality.

However, on that note, please address http://code.google.com/p/google-ajax-apis/issues/detail?id=587 - as noted, the new v1 Books API is missing the important "search within a bookshelf" functionality that the Data API offered.

Thanks...

i have a question: why should any developer, any company which wants to build a valuable product for the long term use any of your APIs ever again?

as you can argument that some of these API do not get used as much as they used to be and there are better alternatives, this is obviously not true for the translate API, where you even state the shutdown is due to "extensive abuse".

well you could obviously state, that a few bad apples spoiled it for everyone , or even the majority of the apples were bad, so you decided to "das kind mit dem bade ausschuetten" (translate it) ? you are supposed to be the smartest guys one the planet and the only solution you can come up is to shut it down? thats a joke, but the joke is on us, the developers.

with this move you just showed us what you really: a company that does not care about developers, you just want to become more like facebook and apple. oh what a great world we live in. more walled gardens.

i'm looking forward to the blogpost about shutting down the google places API as it lead to "extensive abuse" and killing a few startups while doing so.

i pity you google, you were great once, now you are just .... like facebook. but hey, that's what you wanted to be all the time anyway?

I'd also like to voice my disappointment with the shutdown of the Translate API. It was a really cool tool for experiments in the language learning space.

Can you elaborate on the reasons, e.g. the abuse cited on the documentation page? I find it hard to believe that the only workable solution was to close it.

Worse, this kind of decision makes it hard to trust the availability of any Google API in the future. I will think twice before investing time and effort into integrating an API which might or might not be offered in the future.

I understand that Google provided these APIs for free, and can do whatever it likes with them. But it would be nice to have some transparency about the kind of criteria Google uses to decide whether to continue offering an API or not.

Yeah the shutdown of the Translate API is a pain for a LOT of developers. I find it quite disappointing and underwhelming that a company like google would choose to alienate their developers rather than try to find a technical solution to the problem they're having (in this case abuse of the system).

If this is what google is turning into I'm starting to get the feeling that this company might also be heading the way of IBM or Microsoft in the long run.. quite a sad day.

I had enjoyed the image search JavaScript API for a number of apps. Not sure why it's deprecated and getting shutdown, seems pretty handy.

Hopefully Bing's image search API will pick up the slack.

Why not charge for Google Translate? Lots of companies would happily license it.

Saddened by the loss of the translate API, it is incredibly useful. As others have noted, this significantly undermines confidence in the remaining APIs.

It would be much better if Google charges using Translate API than shutting it down. Now i will have to remove this functionality from my projects. Nicelly done Google :(

And Franz had a good point, that why should any company, and also anyone else, use Google's Apis ever again?
Well, for me i will better not to use any new Apis. I'll use it and after year Google just shuts it down. And it waste of time and effort for me.

I'm dissapointed about Google.

Reliability once made you great. I’m very disappointed to see you following the Yahoo cow path.

+1 for charging Google Translate API

not good news. and as always, is related to ignore foreign markets

Google seems to be going to down hill. This used to be a developer friendly company, but i think every good comes to an end.

Just strap a price on them. There are probably businesses depending on it, so they're likely to pay substantial amounts for these services.

Translate API:
Lame excuse. You are Google. Instead of shutting down, in my opinion, your most useful API, you could use your massive wealth of knowledge and engineer powers to solve the problem instead of throwing it away.

Google once was great, now it's just like Oracle/Microsoft/Facebook...

Who's brilliant idea was this? *enter sarcasm*

Please consider keeping the API available for non-profit/educational users.

Bad new all round, especially Feedburner, Image and Translate. Would be interesting to know a bit more about why these are deprecated/to cease.

Surely it can't cost that much to keep going?

This news makes me sick.

It doesn't seem like Google is being honest regarding the reason for shutting down these APIs.

+1 for licensing and charging for API.

Complete shutdown seems like a way of saying: we want to compete with the developers so we'll take these tools away.

+2 for licensing and charging for API.

Please find some way to keep the Google Translate API available, even if you have to make it rate limited like the Twitter API. I use it in one of my examples in a book that teaches Android programming (Hello, Android) and also in two apps on the Market. It will break a lot of apps if you shut it off completely.

Why destroy all that value and not just start charging for those APIs? AWS makes Google look like amateurs.

I'd like to add my voice to those unhappy with deprecating these APIs, Google Finance API in particular.

There are still a number of bugs/deficiencies to address.

The Translate API really is quite valuable. Would it not be reasonable to have it follow a business model of some free number of calls per day, with paying customers able to make progressively more requests?

Translate API was great! (are you getting the message?)

Whoa, whoa, whoa, why are you shutting down the Translate API? Not cool.

Does anyone know what the limit for using Translate API will be? And if it will be per API key?

Could you please tell us when the new APIs will be deprecated?

This is what happens when a search company tries to do everything they can think while trying to outdo others under one company umbrella.

Seriously??? Translate API??? Seriously???

One can only hope that the disappointment expressed in these comments and other such forums on the internet will push Google to take better action and reevaluate their actions, though this debate is most certainly one worth having and it's always good to question how much you trust any one service or platform.

As the lead developer for a non-profit who depends on the Translate API for two of the free "services" we offer, this is a shame... like someone else said, associate a cost with it, we'll pay it, but just shutting it down altogether is bad!

What about the translation features built into Chrome, and Android?

You guys are way to critical, as someone who has developed many APIs allow me to give my thoughts.. deprecation is what happens to old versions of APIs, by definition there must be a replacement. Let's say I have v1 of a service, then I develop v2 that is so much better most people move on .. now I have v1 with some lazy / deprecated products depending on it... unless I want huge technical debt I have to set a cut off. This is what Google is doing, go to the APIs, they have had alternatives in all cases for sometime and they are giving to more time to move over to them. Language for example (which many are complaining about) is still available here: http://www.google.com/webelements/#!/translate and if it's not as clean as you would like, open up your debugger and grab the direct URL calls, there's your API.

Oh yeah and it's free ... and the terms of service never guaranteed you anything ... basing something on this without the willingness to be agile, not the best move

this post raised my fears about using Google APIs.

right now I am working on a client for google reader. However, a insider told me that google reader is actually a dead project, although myself and some I know are heavy users of google reader.

I now worried that one day google reader api will become deprecated, that makes me thinking if it is worth writing clients for google services.

Definitely a sad day, I hope you reconsider.

Was using the Image API for a (free) Android app that is in its way for 1M dls. I will not hesitate in telling them who the fault it is for it not working anymore... muahahahahahahah.

As an editor on Wikimedia projects including the Wikimedia Commons and the Hindi Wikipedia, I find this move stupid.
What will be the fate of the Google IME?
I should've switched to Bing sooner.

Seriuosly, ehat does everyone expect? You actually thougt google would let you make money on their dime forever? Its a company, by definition it only exists to produce value for shareholders. (nothing wrong with that in my opinon).

I maintain a node.js library for doing translation, the Google API is the core of this project.

It really sucks to be having this taken away, now the project will be useless to everyone.

https://github.com/Marak/translate.js

Very disappointed with the deprecation of the Translate APIs. My company didn't use it heavily, but it was extremely helpful to bridge language barriers. I'm sure if there was a reasonable licensing option, my company would use it.

You should spend more time cracking down on paid links, duplicate content and all the garbage you have in your index right now. Results are generally terrible and your APIs were the one good thing. My development projects will NO LONGER use Google as you are not reliable enough to actually develop real projects. Thanks guys! PS. This didn't spoil anything, but I am bitter as this is just getting ridiculous and there is little transparency. AND BTW - change your comments to use our actual Google Profiles since Blogger is terrible. Maybe you should just start using Facebook comments instead.

Booo!

"Adam Feldman is a Product Manager, focusing on all of Google's APIs and making sure Google provides the best possible platform to developers."

I call bullshit.

At One Laptop per Child, we were hoping to hook into the Translate APIs to allow cross-language communication between school kids in different countries. I'd like the second the recommendation about to leave the APIs open for educational/non-profit use at least -- there's about 2 million kids in Uruguay (alone) who could benefit. Why not create an application key system like in some other google products so that you can shut down the abusers while still providing services for the "good guys"?

This is a pity. Is there any option to let the translate api live on a paid basis?

bullshit!

google is going down the hill to meet

This is horrible. Google Translate API in particular enables some really useful applications that its replacement, Google Translate Element, simply cannot perform.

In particular, a project I wrote: http://sigusrone.com/unconfound/ -- user specified selection translation.

Ever been in the situation where you are browsing a web page and there's some snippet of text in a language you don't understand? Want to highlight that text, push a button, and view the translation? Yeah, me too, that's why I wrote that.

Charge for Translate API, don't shut it down!

My websites use your API and will be useless without it.

I humbly request you keep the API open.

Adam Feldman: as you see developers are not happy, but they also understand Google needs (it is a business after all). Is it possible to analize a paid version for the API usage? It will keep both ends happy.

Thanks for your time!

Ooops I said "API" and forgot to mention which one.

Please do not shut down your Translate API. As other's have said, I would pay for this service.

Adding my voice to the 'please dont'! Incredibly useful API

I just integrated jquery-translate last week.

*grumble*

There has to be a better way to curtail the abuse than pissing off programmers. You want to keep us engaged with Google, we are a constituency you don't want to sour relations with. Through us is your future.

You don't want to chase us away, angry and now beholden to other company's services. By all means, if there is abuse, do what you can to cut down the abuse. But throwing the baby out with bathwater seems rather extreme.

Google Translate APIs are immensely popular. You can't figure out a way to monetize this popularity? Really?

Well then someone else will. How boneheaded.

Translate API! Please stay forever. I love you.

-1 for google,
+1 for licensing

but I think Google is depreciating since version 3 is much better:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff512404.aspx

Its obvious google doesn't read its own blog comments.

Too bad.

Seriously Google? The Translator API? Go by a chromebook, trust in Google... You don't need a chunky OS, we'll take care of that and we have all the services and apps you need online. Really? Or are you going to whip other carpets out from under people's feet? Whooosh... there goes half your value proposition. Spring Cleaning, nice spin, but if "extensive abuse" is the issue, control it, or are you saying you can't manage that? I'm off to take a look at Bing Translator's web services. I really think you should reconsider shutting down the Google Translate API.

Deprecating an API based on its replacement with a newer, more powerful and reliable one is an acceptable thing, and it's the kind of risk we as developers take when implementing tools.

Removing a wildly popular API with no replacement even scheduled, citing vague excuses like "too much abuse", is an easy way to get yourself in the Apple camp, sending a shiver down the spine of any developer who thinks about using your tools and then immediately wonders when you'll arbitrarily pull the rug out from under their projects.

This course of action is an inappropriate and terrifying move to your developer base. I never even used the Translate API, but I've used a dozen others from Google for free educational software, and I cringe at the thought that someone who "makes developers' lives easier" could wipe them off the face of the Internet without taking even a moment to consider the implications of such an action.

Hey Google the Translate API serves the needs of many developping countries (learn english), you just broke their chance and biz opportunity with the shutting.

Lets hope Google listens on this one - we don't want Translate shut down! It's simply the best and easiest-to-use of the translate services available.

An alternative such as rate limiting, using OAuth authentication or some kind of API key *must* be the solution to this issue - not shutting it down.

DON'T SHUT DOWN GOOGLE TRANSLATE - ACTION GROUP:

http://on.fb.me/let_google_translate_stay

This saddens and disappoints me too. I was interested in using the TTS aspect of Google Translate to provide TTS in Tux Typing, a free educational children's program. I hadn't officially done anything because TTS wasn't part of the supported API. Google's TTS is the only thing that comes anywhere close to supporting the 30+ locales in Tux Typing, and it does it in a completely cross-platform manner. This would have been a really cool feature that would have made Tux Typing a "learn to read" program, not just a "learn to type" program.

This should be interesting to see what they have come up as replacement.

I am not apologising for Google, but it intrigues me to speculate on the reason. The fact that the API's utility is so obvious to developers, but apparently not to Google suggests that developers may be missing some key information here.
Could it be that the cited abuse reflects on their need to protect their core business? For instance, might Translate API be helping someone to poison some of the signals used by PageRank ?

Books Data API is deprecated now, going away in 6 months -- new the new Books API, however, is still marked "Important: This version of the Books API is in Labs, and its features might change unexpectedly until it graduates."

Should I just ignore this? It is inconvenient to deprecate a production API with an API that is essentially marked "if you write code to this, it could break at any time without warning."

Well why the hell would you shut down your Translate API?

Thanks for fucking things up, Google!

Perhaps a little more clarification would be nice.

Google has a reputation for transparency and openness with its users.

Ruin that, and how likely are we all to put up with you indexing/recording/tracking all of our email/locations/searches/etc....

People don't like secrecy.

DON'T SHUT DOWN GOOGLE TRANSLATE - ACTION GROUP:

http://on.fb.me/let_google_translate_stay

I've realized what Google really is since last summer when they *#?@ us on the net neutrality issue. I'm glad you shut down the Translate api so more people will wake up to the fact that you can't be trusted and are no longer even close to the "do no evil" mantra. I use duckduckgo for all my searching now and I'm trying to get off gmail asap. Good riddence.

glad to see google's true colors. Google doesn't have the BALLS to care about developers, developers, developers!~

If you don't want to deal with these pets anymore, you could set them free instead of killing them, right?

This was a tough decision for us to make; we’re sorry to hear that it’s been a tough one for you to read. Thank you all for your comments, and for reminding us of the passion and energy that you bring to building great products that use our APIs. We launch a lot of APIs, many of them experimental or in Labs. This round of spring cleaning is designed to let us do a better job by focusing more effort on fewer APIs, so that you can continue to count on them.

Deprecating the Translate API was the hardest choice for us to make -- we’re excited about the global web, and about helping developers and webmasters anywhere reach audiences everywhere. We continue to invest in our Translate offerings, including the Google Translate web element. But the Translate API was subject to extensive abuse -- the vast majority of usage was in clear violation of our terms. The painful part of turning off this API is that we recognize it affects some legitimate usage as well, and we’re sorry about that; we hope that our other offerings will cover many of those legitimate use cases.

We are listening, and we really appreciate your thoughtful responses to this post.

Seriously, Translate API is more useful than all the rest combined. Don't shut if off Google Team.

http://on.fb.me/let_google_translate_stay

Just to reiterate what has been said, why should we code against a Google API in the future? Its one thing to when there is a new version that has the full feature set of the old, but to dropping a well used API breaks your relationship with developers.

I think you have the priorities wrong. The cost of keeping the Translate API going and making it a bit more restrictive couldn't possibly be near the goodwill and developer support Google receives from it.
Not like Google to not see the bigger picture. This is a big mistake.

I guess I'd be moving to Microsoft's Translate APIs.

Hmm, maybe eventually their search engine too. Who knows.

one more here who would pay for the Translate API, having spend hundreds of man hours on it.
We still have the Maps integration (please please do not shut it down) but you can bet we WON'T use any more Google API's.
Too risky now.

Attitude counts, and trust is earned, as someone who has seen both legitimate uses of the translate api, and the abuse by valid businesses who have no other choice as Google never offered the opportunity to pay for . All i can see here is idiots managing incompetence. I guess when a company values youth over experience, poor decisions are going to be the long term result.

As a developer, what limited trust i did in Google have has been cut back even further by this.

So much for don't be evil, i guess it's only on Monday now..

Also very annoyed at the loss of the Translate API. Not a great selection of good alternatives out there. Also agree it would be far better to charge a little bit for it, weeding out the abuse, than to get rid of it entirely.

thank god for the timing, was about to start a project using it in a weeks time.

oh - and would have been a paying user btw.

There are alternatives for for example the translate API,
but this is clearly a effort, at least for translate API of Google to put more buttons on wesbite and get there name out rather then using there services 'under the hood'.

I use the translateAPI to translate a open source project using pootle, and I am glad the people from pootle already added a alternative, I just need to enable it.

But yeaaa... this is what happens if you use a company without a face

pathetic.

Like many users I'm disappointed to hear that the Translate API will be shut down soon. It was very useful and was key in developing a number of applications that I've worked on.

May I suggest limiting the free version to a couple hundred requests per day and then establishing a paid version of it with a bulk use licensing fee?

This would allow developers to build and test applications that make use of the API efficiently (since they have limited access) and take care of the cost of running the API on a large scale basis.

Seriously? Most of those APIs scheduled for shutdown are immensely useful!

I am surprised at how big an impact this is having on my perception of Google. I have never touched the Bing search engine and, like a lot of people, took it as a matter of common sense that Google was the naturally "good" company while Microsoft was "evil" as a matter of habit. This move has completely turned these assumptions on their head (for me).

Microsoft upgrades APIs all the time. Microsoft stops developing tech all the time which means that it becomes a poor choice for new projects and probably for really long-lived ones as well.

Honestly though, I cannot at the moment think of a single example of Microsoft taking away a released capability that developers are using in production. In fact, these days, Microsoft is even more likely to contribute non-strategic tech (like IronPython) to the community.

Basically, I have just had it really driven into my head that Microsoft gets developers and the importance of developer loyalty in the long term while Google clearly does not. Microsoft is the safer, and "less evil" party to rely on in apps that I am going to put my name on.

Google, thank you for switching this light-bulb on for me before I became too dependent on you. I use some of your APIs and was planning on using a tonne more. I was just about to release an app to the iOS App Store that uses the Feedburner API in a few places. I should change that ASAP.

Again, Google. Thank you for revealing your core philosophies here. I was making some really dangerous assumptions about you.

It is ironic that I had to "Google" to find the Bing App API:

https://signup.live.com/signup.aspx

It is not something that had ever interested me before.

The Translate API is too good to shut down. Surely you can come up with a better solution.

I thought you could detect and block the abusive use of Translate API!

Killing the translate API is hurting the web. If they was abuse going on, find a way to rate limit or ban the abusers. Don't just shut it off completely.

You say your role is to organized the world's information. It just happens that information comes in many languages, translation API is a necessary part of the plumbing if we are going to make the web accessible to everyone.

I think Google should listen to what developers are saying and find a way to save the translation API.

Google I/O is always an exciting time for developers. huh
I don't know what happen with Google.

Here's the newer? version of Google translate API.
http://translate.google.com/translate_tools

If Aunty Google, as I used to call Google API, goes I will be sad. Why? Why should I move away from my gmail account and search for another translation service when I want a word or phrase or passage from another language? Change your decision and throw out the bath water and not the baby.

This is a terrible idea Google, please reconsider.

Wait.. because there's some who are abusing the translate API your answer is to shut it down? What, are you fucking kidding me? Is that all the mighty Google could come up with? Jesus...

How about charging a small fee for it? That's probably stop 99.99999% of the abuse.

So now you want me to use Google Web Elements? Sure... except what guarantee do I have that in a year that won't stop for "excessive abuse"? I mean, why would I ever use another google api?

And now I'm damn sad and ashamed that I and my company are paying google customers (as in google apps).

I honestly don't think you at Google realize how badly shutting down one of your most popular APIs is for your reputation.

I believe you when you say there's rampant abuse. But to take the path of throwing the baby out with the bathwater-- as an earlier commenter said, why should we ever trust you again?

If your choice is to simply stop a service instead of monetizing it, why should we, as developers, use any what you have to offer? It's one thing to consign little-used APIs to the dustbin. But one of your most popular? That tells *us* that everything you offer is provisional, and that we can't even count for a slow depreciation period!

Our time isn't free, either. I'm not looking for a free ride. I have no problem paying for useful services. That would chose *not* to take my money is baffling.

I wish Google weren't so afraid to ask people to pay for services. If they would just move some of these free APIs to paid APIs, then the fraud would go away, and the people who wanted the services could still get them, and the economies of scale would pay off for everybody.

Same thing with Google Voice. I would GLADLY pay a small annual fee if that meant that I could get real customer service.

It's great to dream of a Web where everything is free, but when that is the case, it isn't always financially viable for everybody to get what they want.

I would like to add my disappointment as well... the API translate is very useful. Why not either limit its use or charge for it? Shutting it down completely is pure madness.

Please Google, consider making Translate API a paid version, don't just shut it down!

I do understand companies do need to review and change their APIs from time to time. You're just doing it wrong. Deprecate, don't just pull the plug, since you do know many developers are using the feature.

Can you elaborate the kind of abuse Translate API was suffering?

> Translate API

Uh, what?

I avoid depending on most third-party APIs, due to fears of them disappearing without a replacement; but I've used Google APIs with the expectation that Google, at least, can be trusted to not vanish non-Labs APIs without a replacement.

So much for that.

I'll judt cite Ballmer for this once; "developers, developers, developers, developers"

I'd hate for my phone ecosystem to slowly morph into something apple-esque for no good reason.

If you shut down Google Translate, we (and I mean all the API developers) will need to go back to BabelFish API http://bit.ly/kTnqc2

It lacks some languages - but with a bit economical wisdom from your competitors it would do well! Google,. how could you arrived at such an idiotic decision?

Sign up here: DON'T SHUT DOWN GOOGLE TRANLATE API! http://on.fb.me/mRzwcU

The API used to post this message has been deprecated.

I want to see the google translate api again it is very important for a country that is not English is the official language.

google translate api can make the world understand each other.
Communicate.

Please, review google translate api the matter again.

One of my projects also depends on Translate API and making it as a paid service is definitely better decision than shutting it down.
I have to agree with other comments here, that this was not a good decision and the reliability of other Google API has suffered.
At least there is a plenty of time to adapt (till December 1).

The best of all is that they wait the end of the Google I/O to annouce this

I'd like to see how many people will go to the Google I/O 2012 or use their Wallet stuff after this...

It's actually true that the smart people is leaving Google and going to FB after all.

Dear Google! Several my sites depend strongly on the Translate API, and I'm definitely ready to pay for it. Please reconsider your decision.

Google translate API? .Very very bad..

Seems google is going down hill. First with the lack of anything really new/innovating lately(remember when their used to be something cool coming out almost monthly?), then the flat out lack of updating some of their products (looking at you picasa)that are not mobile related. Now google is removing features that companies are depending on (language API for example). Who's bright idea was this?

Google Translate API helps the world becomes smaller, but now with this poor decision - the world will become so small that it may even vanish when it comes to Google's rule at leat ;-)

Join the action group on Facebook: "Don't Shut Down Google Translate API"

Link: http://on.fb.me/let_google_translate_stay

I can't even begin to describe my disappointment in the decision to shutdown the Translate API.

I always tell friends and family they're mad to use anyone other than Google for services Google provides, because Google is trustworthy and a company with an actual sense of ethical behaviour.

I'm genuinely reconsidering that stance.

Also, announcing the shutdown of such an important API really takes the shine off the other announcements of new APIs. I mean.. who cares about a new API if you may simply shut it down once we all get dependant on it?

Its a sad day for google, when you start shutting down some of your most succefull APIs namely the Translate API.
Better be heading for microsofts version instead.