Alexa Web Search Platform Released

Philipp Lenssen writes "Amazon's Alexa is releasing their search index (the same that powers the Wayback Machine) to developers via their new Alexa Web Search Platform. The Alexa framework is not for the weak of heart -- expect to learn how to use their C API, and expect to pay micro-amounts for requests and CPU cycles used -- but it also seems to be more powerful than the rival APIs from Yahoo and Google."

Re:Spyware?

[trollable]

That depends on your definition of what spyware is.
If you mean collecting data, then yes Alexa does it.
If you mean collecting personnal data, I don't think the toolbar does it.
Then what about Google? With AdSense running (almost) everywhere + your unique eternal Google ID, they surely collect a lot of data too. And with Google Analytics, they have also a lot of info.
So the question becomes: Is Google AdSense spyware?

Shell access? Arbitrary C code?

[glinden]

As part of the package, it appears the AWSP offers ssh access [alexa.com] to the Alexa cluster where you can write arbitrary C code [alexa.com].

That seems a little dangerous, doesn't it?