This is coming in late on a Saturday, so we only have one side of the story so far. But Canadian startup TXTReviews, which allows people to get book and movie user ratings via text message, says they’re being shut out of Amazon web services.
In a message on their website, the company is actually saying Amazon has banned all mobile startups from accessing web services, but I can’t find any statement by Amazon on this, and the web services forum has no mention of it that I can find.
I’ve got a couple of emails in to Amazon to see if they’ll comment. As we’ve seen in the past, there are often two sides to these stories. Until we’ve heard from them, I’m not going to speculate any further on this.
TXTReviews founder Hussein Fazal says he’ll look for other data services to replace Amazon.
Other services we’ve covered roughly in this area are a rumored Toshiba service that would push blog reviews to shoppers who take a picture of a bar code and send it in, and a number of services that give pricing information via text message.
Update: From an Amazon spokesperson - this is limited to Amazon E-commerce service, a free data service in exchange for sending traffic back to Amazon):
1/ This has nothing to do with our infrastructure web services–EC2, S3, etc. This only concerns the Amazon E-Commerce Service (ECS), the free service that lets developers use our product data in exchange for driving traffic back to Amazon.com. As you know, our infrastructure services are pay-by-the-drink services with completely different terms and conditions as ECS, mainly because they have a different purpose for Amazon.com (ECS is about driving traffic to our site).
2/ Now with regards to just ECS, we do limit access by some mobile-focused companies to just that service. Its says in our license agreement for that service that developers must first get permission
from Amazon Web Services prior to using Amazon ECS in connection with any handheld, mobile, or mobile phone application (see 5.1.4 here) . The reason is that it’s very early days in the mobile space and
Amazon.com is still thinking through how to best serve customers who
want to use mobile devices to shop on Amazon.com. At this point, we’re
being cautious about exposing our catalog data for use in the mobile
space.3/ I hope you can see now how off-base the current headline is. We would really appreciate you changing that and clarifying the story as soon as you can. [Editor note: headline has been updated]
That seems pretty unlikely and might be libel if wrong? Maybe they had a glitch? How do they jump to the conclusion that they’re being banned? They got an email?
Bjorn - all good questions, and I’m working to find the answers.
I agree with Bjorn, its baseless unless some official announcement comes from them
I wonder if they changed their terms of usage around SMS messages. Also you are not allowed to save this data or cache it for longer than 24 hours and sending data via sms could be seen as saving the data because a sms does not expire after 24 hours.
If you think about it why would amazon want to give you a review about a book when you are stood in a book shop weighing up a purchase there and then. I think this would be a good reason for them to look at the service and find away to get it shut down.
Most likely an accidental error with code changes.
i agree with 1,3,5…
just because a company hikkups, you don’t need to be on their tail that very minute with some conspiracy theory
Another possibility is that SMS traffic spiked over the budget. Unlike data via Interner, outgoing SMS cost a pretty penny each - sometimes dozens of pennies even if you buy them in bulk. It might be not even an Amazon decision but a mobile operator decision to shut down accepting SMS from Amazon once the paid limit was exceeded.
I think they will accept it again in the future for sure.
This is one of the big reasons why we created ProductWiki. Having an open and freely accessible source of high quality product information is an essential need in the marketplace. Look at the millions of different ways that Wikipedia’s information has been remixed and mashed up, and you begin to see the possibilities with product info.
In doing some AWS development today, I noticed the provision prohibiting mobile services based off AWS:
“5.1.4. Unless we have provided you our express written consent in advance, you are not permitted to use Amazon ECS in connection with any handheld, mobile or mobile phone application.”
http://www.amazon.com/AWS-Lice.....SJ2AJA#5_1
Although it was last updated August 20th.
if you can’t find the official statement, then it might just rumor
All of AWS or just ECS?
We’ve been using S3 for a largely mobile app for ages, no one has said boo to us. Of course our system is designed such that amazon vever touches the carriers directly.
I guess we need to take a wait and see approach. If found to be true, this is not right!
I think this is a good lesson for developers. If you base your entire business model on a web service, you NEED to have a backup web service in place. If your first line of defense fails, you better start looking for a new backup.
Chris,
Excellent point.
We provide developers with the ability to hook into web services with text messaging. Companies like txtReviews use our services to easily provide content via sms.
I have told my customers on many occasions, that if they are screen scraping, or accessing a web service without a specific agreement with the content provider, they are taking a huge risk. You must have an alternate plan.
Many of the web services do not allow commercial use. While it’s a fine line between commercial and non-commercial, ultimately the content provider has the power.
I had this exact issue with our iPhone RSS reader (http://iPheedr.com) that works with Bloglines. They simply shut down our API access, and rendered it useless. Since the reader also supports OPML and Newsgator, we had covered our bases. We were ultimately able to get it turned back on, but it can be devastating.
Greg Harris
http://www.mobivity.com
Wait. Everything will be fixed!
Here’s why they shut down Mobile Service… Google was planning to release Google phone. it’s allows user to search song by speaking words. you don’t press anything.
Just a note, but reading bar codes via a picture and getting price information and coupons has been available in Japan for at least the last 6-8 months.
Profoundly Amazing. You guys worry about this stupid crap?
Damn, Techcrunch page load runs awfully slow like grandma’s computer or free hosting websites(Geocities, Tripod, etc). I’m not lying to you man… You should check out free access public library internet or college computer campus. They have T1, ISDN, DSL, modern Intel processor…
Load page runs damn slow. I think you putting too many plug-in widgets. I think techcrunch need to test fourty nine state computers. California is fine.
When you in plane and access techcrunch…. You better check out horrible speed. Even Yahoo have tons of text bytes, graphics, links, and even runs faster than techcrunch page page.
Hey, TC entrepenures out there. If you planning to writing web 2.0 application. Don’t buy cheap & low cost hosting space. Always buy professional high speed hosting.
Many professionals want high speed hosting page views. You need super fast page load like Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Digg, etc.
Amazon is the past, tryout whatever it is that MS has to do whatever this site does.
http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com
I dont see why Amazon would seem so threatened by the whole mobile update idea. Their probobly is more to the story than we can see. Theres no way of avoiding mobile uodates, its becoming the new craze.
Here are some facts to clarify the story. We will be issuing a press release tomorrow morning.
- We developed our solution based on Amazon’s consistent promotion of its web services and the ongoing commitment by Jeff Bezos. We would never have thought that our access to this data would be revoked. We launched TXTREVIEWS on June 25th, 2007.
- I received a call from the ‘Senior Business Development Manager - Wireless Amazon.com’ on August 17th informing me that Amazon will be launching its own mobile portal and that Senior Management has decided to ban all mobile related applications from using ECS.
- I received a follow up e-mail on that same day: “For the reasons explained in our conversation, we are no longer prepared to authorize the continued use of the Amazon Web Services ECS service (”ECS”) in connection with the Txtreviews.com…. We have recently changed our position in relation to the usage of ECS in respect to mobile applications and our current AWS Customer Agreement specifically prohibits use of ECS in connection with mobile applications, without our express written approval. Of course, the agreement has always reserved to us the right to discontinue any use of ECS at any time….we would like you to remove the Amazon elements of the service and all references to Amazon in the next 30 days.”
- Today, August 16th marked 30 days from the notice and late last night we made the necessary changes.
From a legal perspective, Amazon has the right to make this change. However, from a PR perspective, this is a disaster. Amazon has always encouraged companies to use their ‘world-class’ web services, but it may now be difficult to trust them if they can unexpectedly make policy changes and ban usage of their data.
Please feel free to e-mail me directly at hussein.fazal@txtreviews.com with any questions.
“Amazon will be launching its own mobile portal and that Senior Management has decided to ban all mobile related applications from using ECS.”
What?? This is a ridiculous decision by Amazon. Amazon has its own non-mobile portal, too — it’s called http://www.amazon.com — and I’m left to wonder if they’re not going to start banning access to that also. What’s the difference?
Anybody thinking about developing with ECS in any capacity should be very cautious, and should probably just move on and look for some other business to be in.
“Amazon Killing ECS Access From Mobile Services”?
What the heck does that mean?
If I don’t know, I know these Tards commenting can’t.
http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com
I hate to derail this, but Fake Steve Ballmer?
Your blog is awful and boring to read. Please stop posting random crap for link-juice, and please refund me the 5 minutes it took to skim your blog.
Thanks,
The Internet.
Several months ago, I got a call from a recruiter about doing product mgmt for Amazon’s Wireless group, and the pitch was exactly as Hussein described. So I think its pretty certain that Amazon is shutting down developer/free access to mobile because they are moving into the area themselves with very similar services.
More information on Amazon’s Ban can be found here:
http://www.txtreviews.com/Amazon_Ban.html