Meta Search Engine Legality

[scvx]

Hi Everyone,

I am working on a meta search engine which draws results exclusively off of Google then reorders these results without any regard to Google's original ranking. I was curious to know if this is legal as I haven't asked for permission from Google. Additionally would it be considered an infringement to use Google's spell check feature as well assuming I give them credit?? Any advice or past experiences would be helpful, Thanks!

-Steve

[Robert_Charlton]

I was curious to know if this is legal as I haven't asked for permission from Google.

No, it's not legal.

[crazylogic]

You need to look at the terms of service for the search engines.

http://www.google.com/terms_of_service.html

I believe they start to sell the results at 1,000,000 Querys ... I don't think they care much about small volumns of querys but they don't give you the permission to use the data for anything other than personal use.

Googles APIs: http://www.google.com/apis/ does allow for you to use spell checking and maps. The maps api is here http://www.google.com/apis/maps/ for showing maps on your web site and i believe the maps interface does let you search for local results.

It is interesting that Yahoo TOS do not mention meta searching or automated querys: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
but you can not "duplicate" the service? I have seen meta search engine scripts that used yahoo but it appears you must reorder the data? To comply with their TOS and you can not "exploit for any commercial purposes" their service.

I have seen small search engines that wellcome third party use of their data and PPC search engines that will pay you for hosting their search results.

[rnarvaez]

If cookies cannot be removed as these seem necessary to conduct the search engine business, then the user of search engines needs a clear link to the policy where it is spelled out in big print/large font the fact that search sessions are not private, and are/can in fact be traced (by ISP and handed over to the government) to user's computer/location. This is not quite clear to the average user at the present time, they (user) just go to Google and there is a blank screen with a textbox for query input and no warning about search privacy/public policy. If there is a clear warning and notification that the search is not private and if fact is a public process, then there is probably no problem with the government requesting search engine info.

[crazylogic]

I don't think any search engine located in the US can protect the user from the US government requesting the data. The only thing they can do is delete their logs and not record the data.