Using AdWords API to export to third-party ad networks will remain OK as Google keeps terms it adopted in FTC settlement

Though the part of Google’s antitrust settlement with the Federal Trade Commission that had them allow exports of AdWords data through its API expires tomorrow, Matthew Sucherman, Google’s VP and deputy general counsel, announced today that Google will keep the AdWords API terms and conditions as they are currently.

That means Google will continue to allow software that interfaces with its API to export AdWords campaign and ad data, so users will be able to continue mixing that data with other information and integrating it into other ad networks, such as Bing Ads.

“We believe that these policies provide continued flexibility for developers and websites, and we will be continuing our current practices regarding the AdWords API Terms and Conditions and the domain-by-domain opt-out following the expiration of the voluntary commitments,” Sucherman said.

Google explained that this requirement expires tomorrow, December 27, 2017, but they have decided internally to keep the terms and conditions as is.

Additionally, Google will continue to allow websites to keep their crawled content from appearing on Google.com-linked pages for Google Flights, Google Hotels, Google Shopping and in results returned for certain local queries. The provision enables a competing site to allow its pages to be included in web search results while keeping them from appearing on more directly competitive Google offerings — though opting out from the local results would apply globally.

Google wrote:

In 2012, Google made voluntary commitments to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) that are set to expire on December 27th, 2017. At that time, we agreed to remove certain clauses from our AdWords API Terms and Conditions. We also agreed to provide a mechanism for websites to opt out of the display of their crawled content on certain Google web pages linked to google.com in the United States on a domain-by-domain basis.

We believe that these policies provide continued flexibility for developers and websites, and we will be continuing our current practices regarding the AdWords API Terms and Conditions and the domain-by-domain opt-out following the expiration of the voluntary commitments.

About The Author

Barry Schwartz

Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on SEM topics.