> Don’t misuse our Services. For example, don’t interfere with our Services or try to access them using a method other than the interface and the instructions that we provide.
Despite this, there is scholar.py [0], which can extract files from Google Scholar, though it explicitly doesn't work around the rate limits.
Unless this actually exploits something and hacks into Google's servers to get to the content, which would be something quite different, it wouldn't really be distinguishable from someone manually visiting the site in a browser, volume aside.
IMHO the pervasive attitude today of somehow requiring permission or an explicitly sanctioned "API" to access what is otherwise publicly accessible data is rather troubling for the freedom and flexibility of the Web as a whole. It encourages walled-garden content models and centralisation.
However, Google doesn't agree and the current court precedent doesn't either. So I tried to address the parent's concern from that viewpoint.
My browser is my User Agent. The way it renders or interprets the data is my business.
And about the future, how do you see google responding?