The reverberations of the apparent attempted clean-up has been significant, with nearly a hundred AdWords API developers reporting in a discussion group that their developer token had been suddenly revoked — though some had previously had access to the API for months, or even years — with no notice from Google.

“The Google API is a critical piece to many publishers – large and small – who make informative decisions based upon the investment they make in the AdWords program,” Jason Prescott , CEO of TopTenWholesale.com and Manufacturer.com, told me in an e-mail exchange. “Our marketing teams, customers, and numerous resources all become accustomed to a certain way of managing aspects of their daily duties. When a wrench is thrown, the rattling caused equated to losses that are not only quantifiable – but at times crippling.”

Originally, the problem was suspected to be a bug, but, later, Google confirmed that the action was a result of a periodic review of API activity, a spokesperson said.

To have their developer token reactivated, API developers must re-apply and include specific detailed information:

• The uses of the API application or tool with specific examples. Is it for bid optimization or account management?
• Who will using the API application or tool? People within your company or others to whom the application will be sold?

Google is also asking for screenshots of the API app or tool, or design documentation if the product is in development. Additionally, it wants a list of clients that will be using the API application or tool “in an automated way.”

So far, at least one API developer — Jason Prescott of TopTenWholesale.com and Manufacturer.com, who I quoted above — has been granted “provisional” access to the API again, after writing an e-mail and contacting a Google representative. Prescott’s company will have to provide all of the above information before September 23, and presumably it will have to meet Google’s requirements, before the access decision becomes final.

Essentially, this service will be Google fetching the content on your web site and then serving it up with speed improvements of 25% to 60% to the rest of the world, including Google’s bots.

Google will eventually charge for the service but has not yet said how the pricing structure will look. The service includes:

• An online service that automatically speeds up loading of your web pages.
• Switch your domain name to point to Google’s DNS.
• Page Speed Service fetches content from your servers
• It rewrites your pages by applying web performance best practices
• It then serves them to end users via Google’s servers across the globe.
• The service will do the concatenating CSS, compressing images, caching, gzipping resources or other web performance best practices.

To sign up, use this web form. Note, Google will likely eventually charge you for this service and they are not disclosing how much it will cost at this point in time.

I find it interesting that Google is getting into the content delivery game, I know they are obsessed with speed and it will help the web get faster but it just seems strange to me.

Related Stories:

• It’s Official: Google Now Counts Site Speed As A Ranking Factor
• Site Speed, Google’s Next Ranking Factor
• Google’s Push To Speed Up Your Web Site
• Google Launches Page Speed Analyzer In Labs
• Google Releases Page Speed Report In Webmaster Tools
• Google Launches Server Tool To Speed Up The Web

In coming weeks, API v201101 will also feature the ability for agencies to use interest-based advertising at scale, meaning they can set conversion events on their own web sites and easily target the people who visit certain pages, or do specified things. For example, an automobile manufacturer might want to target people who’ve visited a section of their site that features an upcoming model.

This topic has been going on for months, starting back in November when Facebook removed the ability to export email addresses to some third-party applications. Google responded by warning Google users to not export their contracts to Facebook. The Google & Facebook conflict is nothing new, especially with Bing & Facebook’s special partnership that Google can have no part of.

Google’s recent statement on why they dropped the Nexus S sync to Facebook was:

“We believe it is very important that users are able to control their data. So in the over-the-air update for Nexus S, we have a small change to how Facebook contacts appear on the device. For Nexus S users who downloaded the Facebook app from Android Market, Facebook contacts will no longer appear to be integrated with the Android Contacts app. Since Facebook contacts cannot be exported from the device, the appearance of integration created a false sense of data portability. Facebook contact data will continue to appear within the Facebook app. Like all developers on Android, Facebook is free to use the Android contacts API to truly integrate contacts on the device, which would allow users to have more control over their data. We are removing the special-case handling of Facebook contacts on Nexus S and future lead devices. We continue to believe that reciprocity (the expectation that if information can be imported into a service it should be able to be exported) is an important step toward creating a world of true data liberation — and encourage other websites and app developers to allow users to export their contacts as well.”

Will this impact other Android phones? Possibly yes, in the future – as the other devices gain access to the latest Android OS.

Related Stories:

• Google & Facebook: If You’re So Smart, Work It Out!
• Google/Facebook Saga Continues: Google Warns Not To “Trap” Your Data
• Facebook: You’ve No Right To Export Email Addresses (Unless It’s To Yahoo & Microsoft)
• In The Wake Of Bing & Facebook, Google Web Search Tests Getting More Social
• Bing, Now With Extra Facebook: See What Your Friends Like & People Search Results

The Content API for Shopping will be used for uploading data, and the Search API for Shopping for accessing product data. The Content API can be used to add, delete, query or modify any item individually or with a batch protocol. The Search API is aimed at helping Google Affiliate Network publishers and Google Commerce Search customers.

Both of the new APIs use the Gdata protocol used by many other Google APIs. Those who upload XML or CSV files directly can continue to use the Merchant Center.

The company will no longer support data types such as jobs, real estate, events, and activities, after Google Base is retired in June.

Separately, Microsoft also announced an API change, urging users of its adCenter API to shift to version 7, which was released to production earlier this year. The company says version 6 will sunset this spring.

If you go to the find friends section on Facebook, you will find options to find your friends via Skype, AIM, Windows Live Hotmail, Yahoo, AOL, Comcast, MSN, sbcglobal and verizon.net, but you won’t see Google’s Gmail as an option:

This doesn’t come as a surprise to many. Earlier this month, Google changed their terms of service to force Facebook to either open up more of their information or have to drop Gmail as a friends find option.

Here are more of the related stories below to track this ongoing saga between Google and Facebook.

• Will Facebook Lose Google’s Contacts Integration?
• Facebook: You’ve No Right To Export Email Addresses (Unless It’s To Yahoo & Microsoft)
• Google/Facebook Saga Continues: Google Warns Not To “Trap” Your Data
• Facebook Messages: Export Of Facebook.com Addresses OK
• Google & Facebook: If You’re So Smart, Work It Out!

This warning stems from Google recently changing their terms of service of their contacts API to prevent Facebook from using it without allowing Facebook users to export their data. Yesterday, Facebook began allowing you to export the names of your friends, but nothing all that useful. Google’s response is a new warning page having you think twice before exporting your Gmail contacts to Facebook.

The warning can be viewed over here and it reads:

Trap my contacts now

Hold on a second. Are you super sure you want to import your contact information for your friends into a service that won’t let you get it out?

Here’s the not-so-fine print. You have been directed to this page from a site that doesn’t allow you to re-export your data to other services, essentially locking up your contact data about your friends. So once you import your data there, you won’t be able to get it out. We think this is an important thing for you to know before you import your data there. Although we strongly disagree with this data protectionism, the choice is yours. Because, after all, you should have control over your data.

Of course, you are always free to download your contacts using the export feature in Google Contacts.

This public service announcement is brought to you on behalf of your friends in Google Contacts.

Here is a picture:

When users sign up to Facebook, they are prompted to add friends. They can do so manually or by uploading their contacts or email lists. To make this process easier, Facebook, like other sites, integrate with the various APIs to allow users to enter their username and passwords on third party sites so Facebook can get the data for them. Google is one of those main data sources for Facebook, but Google’s policy change no longer allows companies like Facebook to grab the data.

The new policy requires Facebook or anyone else who uses this API, to allow their users to export the data from their system – as easily as you can export the data from Google. Here is the clause from the terms of service:

5.8. Google supports data portability. By accessing Content through the Contacts Data API or Portable Contacts API for use in your service or application, you are agreeing to enable your users to export their contacts data to other services or applications of their choice in a way that’s substantially as fast and easy as exporting such data from Google Contacts, subject to applicable laws.

As of right now, the Facebook Invites screen still has the Google import option. But it may go away.

A Google spokesperson told TechCrunch:

Google is committed to making it easy for users to get their data into and out of Google products. That is why we have a data liberation engineering team dedicated to building import and export tools for users. We are not alone. Many other sites allow users to import and export their information, including contacts, quickly and easily. But sites that do not, such as Facebook, leave users in a data dead end.

So we have decided to change our approach slightly to reflect the fact that users often aren’t aware that once they have imported their contacts into sites like Facebook they are effectively trapped. Google users will still be free to export their contacts from our products to their computers in an open, machine-readable format–and once they have done that they can then import those contacts into any service they choose. However, we will no longer allow websites to automate the import of users’ Google Contacts (via our API) unless they allow similar export to other sites.

It’s important that when we automate the transfer of contacts to another service, users have some certainty that the new service meets a baseline standard of data portability. We hope that reciprocity will be an important step towards creating a world of true data liberation–and that this move will encourage other websites to allow users to automate the export of their contacts as well.

In short, Facebook has data that Google wants. Facebook made a deal with Microsoft, so Bing uses that data. But Facebook has no plans for a Google deal. Google is basically telling Facebook, if you want our data, play fair – we will trade. But in this case, who has more to lose?

In short all the information and data that Google has about a place, say Gramercy Tavern in New York, will become available to developers through the API. This is exciting to many and offers the promise of a kind of open or “free” database of places (an LBS meme of late), though some might prefer a “neutral” database such as the one being developed by OpenStreetMap. As an aside, Mapquest has helped to fund OpenStreetMap and has ambitious plans to build on top of it.

Places API’s terms seem to require use of AdSense on any apps developed: “All developers wishing to use the service must already have an Adsense account, or must create one prior to applying.”

There are also other rules and restrictions regarding how data are to be presented in applications. For example, there’s no caching or storage of data locally — so to speak. (Here’s the technical discussion.)

For the near term Google said it is only going to work with “check-in” applications:

We are going to focus initially on check-in applications. These are the applications that we feel the API currently caters to well, and we are excited to work with developers building these applications to understand their requirements, and ensure that we are offering them the best possible experience.

It appears that third party applications will be able to do two basic kinds of things with the data: enable users to search for places (where they are or nearby) and/or retrieve more detailed information about specific locations (here or near).

The restriction to “check-in” applications (at least at the outset) may result in the development of lots of new check-in apps. Foursquare’s founder Dennis Crowley not long ago said that “check-ins would become a commodity.” The Google Places API would seem to all but guarantee that.

Google explained that v200909 is not going away anytime soon. But they want to release this new beta to enhance the current offerings of their AdWords API. The enhancements include:

• ReportService beta: generate reports about the performance of your AdWords campaigns
• Bid simulator: see estimated clicks, cost and impressions corresponding to various Max. CPC bids
• Ad Sitelinks extensions: include up to four additional links in your ads to deeper content on your site
• Phone extensions: add a phone number to your text ads that appear on mobile devices with full Internet browsers such as iPhone and Android ads
• Sync for location extensions: synchronize your AdWords location extensions with Google Places (formerly Local Business Center) listings
• MediaService: upload images and icons for location extensions
• Position preference: specify in what position range you’d like your ads to appear
• Target CPA: bid based on the average amount you’d like pay for a conversion
• Carrier and device targeting: target ads to specific mobile carriers and devices
• Category targeting: show placement targeted ads on a set of placements with the same theme
• 1-per-click and many-per-click conversions: get both types of conversion metrics
• A minimum size for bulk mutate jobs

It is important to note that v13 still powers TrafficEstimatorService and AccountService but that ReportService is available in beta within v201003.