Amazon Product Advertising API

Last updated

Amazon's Product Advertising API, formerly Amazon Associates Web Service (A2S) and before that known as Amazon E-Commerce Service (ECS), is a web service and application programming interface (API) that gives application programmers access to Amazon's product catalog data. Accessible via either the SOAP or REST protocols it enables products to be listed and/or sold through third-party websites and applications. [1] It is a product of Amazon Services, not to be confused with Amazon Web Services. [2]

Contents

Functionality

Amazon.com developed the Product Advertising API toward three classifications of users:

The API allows clients to search or browse Amazon.com's product catalog; to retrieve detailed product information, reviews, and images; and to interface with customer shopping carts. Purchases at Amazon through a third-party website or application allows the operators of that site to earn up to 8.5% in referral fees. [3]

Motivation

The motivation behind the free Product Advertising API is to give partners the opportunity to earn money by promoting for Amazon products. [4] The access is given to developers of applications that primarily bring or at least seem to have the potential to bring gains to Amazon. [5]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amazon (company)</span> American multinational technology company

Amazon.com, Inc. is an American multinational technology company focusing on e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. It has been often referred to as "one of the most influential economic and cultural forces in the world", and is often regarded as one of the world's most valuable brands. It is considered to be one of the Big Five American technology companies, alongside Alphabet, Apple, Meta and Microsoft.

FileMaker is a cross-platform relational database application from Claris International, a subsidiary of Apple Inc. It integrates a database engine with a graphical user interface (GUI) and security features, allowing users to modify a database by dragging new elements into layouts, screens, or forms. It is available in desktop, server, iOS and web-delivery configurations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">A9.com</span> Subsidiary of Amazon based in Palo Alto, California

A9.com was a former subsidiary of Amazon that developed search engine and search advertising technology. A9 was based in Palo Alto, California, with teams in Seattle, Bangalore, Beijing, Dublin, Iași, Munich and Tokyo. A9 has development efforts in areas of product search, cloud search, visual search, augmented reality, advertising technology and community question answering.

Software as a service is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. SaaS is also known as on-demand software, web-based software, or web-hosted software.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ArcGIS</span> Geographic information system maintained by Esri

ArcGIS is a family of client, server and online geographic information system (GIS) software developed and maintained by Esri.

Google Developers is Google's site for software development tools and platforms, application programming interfaces (APIs), and technical resources. The site contains documentation on using Google developer tools and APIs—including discussion groups and blogs for developers using Google's developer products.

Amazon S3 or Amazon Simple Storage Service is a service offered by Amazon Web Services (AWS) that provides object storage through a web service interface. Amazon S3 uses the same scalable storage infrastructure that Amazon.com uses to run its e-commerce network. Amazon S3 can store any type of object, which allows uses like storage for Internet applications, backups, disaster recovery, data archives, data lakes for analytics, and hybrid cloud storage. AWS launched Amazon S3 in the United States on March 14, 2006, then in Europe in November 2007.

An open API is a publicly available application programming interface that provides developers with programmatic access to a software application or web service. Open APIs are APIs that are published on the internet and are free to access by consumers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Geosocial networking</span> Social network with geographic features

Geosocial networking is a type of social networking in which geographic services and capabilities such as geocoding and geotagging are used to enable additional social dynamics. User-submitted location data or geolocation techniques can allow social networks to connect and coordinate users with local people or events that match their interests. Geolocation on web-based social network services can be IP-based or use hotspot trilateration. For mobile social networks, texted location information or mobile phone tracking can enable location-based services to enrich social networking.

The Facebook Platform is the set of services, tools, and products provided by the social networking service Facebook for third-party developers to create their own applications and services that access data in Facebook.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rackspace Cloud</span> Cloud computing platform

The Rackspace Cloud is a set of cloud computing products and services billed on a utility computing basis from the US-based company Rackspace. Offerings include Cloud Storage, virtual private server, load balancers, databases, backup, and monitoring.

Amazon Pay is an online payments processing service owned by Amazon. Launched in 2007, Amazon Pay uses the consumer base of Amazon.com and focuses on giving users the option to pay with their Amazon accounts on external merchant websites. As of March 2021, the service became available in Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Republic of Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and the United States.

Touchatag was an RFID service for consumers, application developers and operators/enterprises created by Alcatel-Lucent. Consumers could use RFID tags to trigger what touchatag called Applications, which could include opening a webpage, sending a text message, shutting down the computer, or running a custom application created through the software's API, via the application developer network. Touchatag applications were also compatible with NFC enabled phones like the Nokia 6212. TikiTag was launched as an open beta on October 1, 2008. And it was rebranded to touchatag on February 15, 2009. Touchatag also sold RFID hardware, like a starter package with 1 USB RFID reader and 10 RFID tags (stickers), for which the client software was compatible with Windows XP and Vista, along with Mac OS X 10.4 and up. Touchatag was carried by Amazon.com, ThinkGeek, Firebox.com and getDigital.de along with Touchatag's own Online Store. Touchatag also marketed their products' underlying technology for enterprise and operator solutions. Touchatag announced an agreement with Belgacom PingPing on jointly developing the contactless market and announced a commercial pilot with Accor Services. On June 27, 2012, the Touchatag team has announced the shutdown of the project. inviting users to use IOTOPE "a similar open source Internet Of Things service" which itself has no apparent activity since November 2012.

Eucalyptus is a paid and open-source computer software for building Amazon Web Services (AWS)-compatible private and hybrid cloud computing environments, originally developed by the company Eucalyptus Systems. Eucalyptus is an acronym for Elastic Utility Computing Architecture for Linking Your Programs To Useful Systems. Eucalyptus enables pooling compute, storage, and network resources that can be dynamically scaled up or down as application workloads change. Mårten Mickos was the CEO of Eucalyptus. In September 2014, Eucalyptus was acquired by Hewlett-Packard and then maintained by DXC Technology. After DXC stopped developing the product in late 2017, AppScale Systems forked the code and started supporting Eucalyptus customers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">API</span> Software interface between computer programs

An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how to build or use such a connection or interface is called an API specification. A computer system that meets this standard is said to implement or expose an API. The term API may refer either to the specification or to the implementation. Whereas a system's user interface dictates how its end-users interact with the system in question, its API dictates how to write code that takes advantage of that system's capabilities.

An app store, also called an app marketplace or app catalog, is a type of digital distribution platform for computer software called applications, often in a mobile context. Apps provide a specific set of functions which, by definition, do not include the running of the computer itself. Complex software designed for use on a personal computer, for example, may have a related app designed for use on a mobile device. Today apps are normally designed to run on a specific operating system—such as the contemporary iOS, macOS, Windows, Linux or Android—but in the past mobile carriers had their own portals for apps and related media content.

A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a phone, tablet, or watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop applications which are designed to run on desktop computers, and web applications which run in mobile web browsers rather than directly on the mobile device.

Backend as a service (BaaS), sometimes also referred to as mobile backend as a service (MBaaS), is a service for providing web app and mobile app developers with a way to easily build a backend to their frontend applications. Features available include user management, push notifications, and integration with social networking services. These services are provided via the use of custom software development kits (SDKs) and application programming interfaces (APIs). BaaS is a relatively recent development in cloud computing, with most BaaS startups dating from 2011 or later. Some of the most popular service providers are AWS Amplify and Firebase.

Google APIs are application programming interfaces (APIs) developed by Google which allow communication with Google Services and their integration to other services. Examples of these include Search, Gmail, Translate or Google Maps. Third-party apps can use these APIs to take advantage of or extend the functionality of the existing services.

Umar Javeed, Sukarma Thapar, Aaqib Javeed vs. Google LLC and Ors. is a 2019 court case in which Google and Google India Private Limited were accused of abuse of dominance in the Android operating system in India. The Competition Commission of India found that Google abused its dominant position by requiring device manufacturers wishing to pre-install apps to adhere to a compatibility standard on Android.

References

  1. "Product Advertising API". Amazon.de. Archived from the original on 14 May 2011. Retrieved 2011-04-21.
  2. "Product Advertising API". online: amazon.com. Retrieved 2011-05-14.
  3. "Product Advertising API". Amazon.com Inc. Archived from the original on 5 July 2011. Retrieved 21 July 2011.
  4. "Efficiency Guidelines". Amazon.de. Archived from the original on 14 May 2011. Retrieved 2011-04-21.
  5. "Amazon EU Product Advertising API Licence Agreement". Amazon.de. Retrieved 2011-04-21. Unsuitable applications include those that: (a) do not have as their principal purpose advertising and marketing the Amazon Site and driving sales of products and services on the Amazon Site; ...

Further reading