Re:Why should anyone ever use a Google API again?
by pfhayes on Friday May 27, 2011 @02:50PM
(#2592633)
If the abuse is translating spam, then that's even more surprising - because that's exactly the kind of abuse that Gmail already prevents all the time. It even seems like a great opportunity for Google to gather spam data in all sorts of languages.
This would 'self correct' folks who weren't doing the extra work.
However for things where there isn't really a credible way to come up with an alternative you are kind of screwed. But then it would become a Google problem if they didn't get API adoption without offering some sort of indemnification in the event they need to take it back.
I presume the 'translation abuse' is people using it to send spam in 141 different languages.