Ask HN: Is DuckDuckGo Violating Bing Search API TOU?

1 point

5 years ago

Bing is one of the main sources for DuckDuckGo's (DDG) search results [1]. Section 4(k) of the Bing Search API clearly states[2]:

    When using the Services, you may not, nor may you permit third parties or your End Users to: [...]
    Redistribute, resell, or sublicense access to any Microsoft service or Content;

If DDG takes results from Bing and presents them to me on their website, is this not redistribution? Is it not considered redistribution because the results are aggregated with results from other sources? Is Microsoft not terminating their relationship with DDG because they're afraid of a lawsuit?

If I upload a movie, book, or song to the internet and give you a link, I'm violating US copyright law because I'm redistributing the media without permission. But if I take search results from an API, and display them on my webpage, that's not redistribution? If anyone has any good references for understanding this further, please share them in the comments. I'm working on a tool that would like to use these APIs in a way similar to DDG, but I can't understand what they're doing to avoid violating the Terms of Use.

1: https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/sources/

2: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/bing/apis/legal

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