Recent changes in the Terms of Use for Application Programming Interfaces (“APIs”) highlight the ways law and technology can work together to promote business innovation. While in the past web platforms have been relatively care free about how their data is used through APIs, such platforms have recently taken up a significant interest in controlling how the data is subsequently used. These policy changes, firmly within the discretion of such platforms, are a sign of things to come for web and mobile services.
Facebook, through its platform offering, ushered in a wave of website application innovation. For large web and mobile technology ventures, it is no longer enough to focus just on user adoption—developer adoption of a platform has become just as important. No amount of users can substitute for a cadre of independent developers. The most successful companies, such as Twitter and Facebook, now prioritize their API users the same way first generation web companies catered to unique website visitors. By supplying a platform for third-party developers to build upon, companies can harness outside creativity to drive growth on their platforms. API adoption has led to follow-on innovation and, in many cases, development of critical features that redefine the underlying platform.