possibly removing amazon API support

[Robby Stephenson]

Hi folks,

Amazon.com has renamed their web services API to "Product Advertising API" 
and has introduced a requirement to encrypt and sign all search requests. 
You can read some more info at
http://affiliate-blog.amazon.com/2009/05/attention-amazon-associates-web-
service-developers.html

Essentially, you work up the REST query as usual, then use a secret key to 
sign it with SHA-256 encryption or something. I've worked up an update to 
Tellico that seems to work with the new method, but basically, you're not 
supposed to distribute your secret key at all.

As of August 15, 2009, all searches using the old method will stop working. 
That is, all versions of Tellico will stop working with amazon search on 
that day. That's the first thing.

Second, Tellico has always been a bit in the grey area in terms of the API 
terms of service. You probably notice that there's always a link back to 
amazon in the search results. That's part of the terms of service. The terms 
have also been updated, and they're a bit more stringent. I'm not sure I can 
truthfully say that Tellico would not cross the line somehow. One of the 
requirements is that the principal task of the app is marketing amazon 
products. Yup...

Third, it's pretty clear that even if the Terms of Service allowed it, 
they're pretty clear about not distributing your secret key. So I guess I 
could allow ever user to register for their own key (which is free), but I 
don't know if that is really a solution.

So, I'm considering removing the Amazon API support altogether. Drastic, I 
know. Any comments?

I don't know how other applications like Delicious Library plan to deal with 
the change. I wish I did...

Robby