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Discussion Forums
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Thread: Amazon Historical Data
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Replies:
10
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Last Post:
Jan 31, 2009 7:06 PM
by: Jim L Taylor
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Posts:
12
Registered:
10/12/06
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Amazon Historical Data
Posted:
Jan 9, 2008 8:34 AM PST
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Is this service still available ? Thanks.
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Posts:
191
Registered:
10/11/07
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Re: Amazon Historical Data
Posted:
Jan 10, 2008 6:26 PM PST
in response to: jon brown
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Hi Jon,
Amazon Historical Pricing is no longer available.
Kate
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Posts:
12
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10/12/06
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Re: Amazon Historical Data
Posted:
Jan 10, 2008 6:55 PM PST
in response to: Kate@AWS
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Did something else take its place or is anything else in the works ?
Thanks
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Posts:
191
Registered:
10/11/07
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Re: Amazon Historical Data
Posted:
Jan 10, 2008 6:57 PM PST
in response to: jon brown
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Sorry, Jon. There is not.
Kate
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Posts:
5
Registered:
1/15/09
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Posts:
2,578
Registered:
2/8/06
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Re: Amazon Historical Data
Posted:
Jan 15, 2009 12:58 PM PST
in response to: Cooper Marcus
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You can retrieve current pricing data via this webservice. Just not "historical" pricing.
I am familiar with one of those you listed and I believe those users are interested in what is is selling for right now, not what it sold for 2 years ago. I am guessing the others would be the same.
Jim
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Posts:
5
Registered:
1/15/09
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Re: Amazon Historical Data
Posted:
Jan 15, 2009 1:40 PM PST
in response to: Jim L Taylor
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I thought that might be the case - but there seem to be a number of things in the terms of service for this service that make this sort of usage questionable at best, if not a clear violation.
For instance, the introductory page for this service
http://aws.amazon.com/associates/ says:
"You may use the data in the Amazon Associates Web Service as long as it’s used primarily to drive traffic back to Amazon’s web sites or sales of Amazon products and services."
I think it is a bit of a stretch to say that the media scouting applications "primarily drive sales...of Amazon products" - the connection between showing a book scout a used book price and that book actually being sold on Amazon is not very strong!
Additionally, that same page says:
"You may make up to one Amazon Associates request per second per IP address."
That suggests to me that either the book scouting companies need to spread inquiries across lots of servers, or they can support only a very limited number of simultaneous users.
Finally, at least one of the media scouting products provides for an off-line database - you can look up Amazon.com values without an internet connection. This seems like it would require a LOT of requests to Amazon to stay current, and, though I don't see it specifically prohibited, it seems that Amazon would not like a 3rd party maintaining a database of Amazon's media product pricing.
So really, all of this is allowable under the terms of service?
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Posts:
36
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4/22/07
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2,578
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Re: Amazon Historical Data
Posted:
Jan 16, 2009 8:29 AM PST
in response to: Cooper Marcus
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All the scout has to do is demonstrate that "their" primary purpose is to support third-party sellers. Whether it happens is a bit out of their control. Not much different than comparison shopping sites. You are showing prices but there is a real chance the buyer could/will go somewhere else, but the purpose of the usage of the data is to drive sales. Most people who sell books in any amount sell on several sites including Amazon so there is a reasonably high probability that the item will end up on Amazon.
With good application design and caching one can support a fairly high number of simultaneous users and stay within the limits.
Those who provide access without an internet connection may very well be using the datafeed which they have to update daily or they do the data retrieval and pass it back directly from their site via some other method.
Jim
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Posts:
8
Registered:
3/30/08
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Re: Amazon Historical Data
Posted:
Jan 31, 2009 12:31 PM PST
in response to: jon brown
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so a site like
http://www.camelcamelcamel.com/ can store all historical prices without limitation as long as the site drives traffic back to amazon?
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2,578
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Re: Amazon Historical Data
Posted:
Jan 31, 2009 7:06 PM PST
in response to: agilestorm
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The short answer is, No...the long answer...I can't speak to what they are doing, the source of their data or any special agreements they might have with Amazon but under the WebService License Agreement the pricing data should not be kept for more than 24 hours. A few years ago I seem to remember they allowed a week in special cases so I don't know if that is what they are operating under or not as it appears to only go back a week. They also had a Historical Data subscription service that has been discontinued but maybe it is still operating for those that were subscribed at the time. You would need to ask them.
Jim
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