The other night I was experimenting with Microsoft’s Live Search, trying to write a program that would submit a search query and get back the results. Somewhere in my wanderings I ran across the “format=xml” option, that tells search to return the results in an XML format. For example:
http://search.live.com/results.aspx?q=jim+mischel&format=xml
Notice the copyright message:
Copyright © 2007 Microsoft. All rights reserved. These XML results may not be used, reproduced or transmitted in any manner or for any purpose other than rendering Live Search results within the corresponding Live Search stylesheet and Live Search web page. All other use of these results requires express written permission from Microsoft Corporation. By accessing this web page or using these results in any manner whatsoever, you agree to be bound by the foregoing restrictions.
Maybe I’m missing something, but it seems to me that by displaying those results in my Web browser in XML format, I’m in violation of the restrictions. I can’t think of any other way to interpret that copyright message.
Which brings me to the question: Why would Microsoft make those XML search results available at all if they don’t want people to use them?
By the way, the “approved” method of accessing Live Search programmatically is through the Live Search API. Check out the Windows Live Developer Center and Windows Live SDK for more information. At some point I’ll have to cover those in my .NET Reference Guide.