【抄訳】
2008年の7月にYahooは、BOSSというラジカルな新製品を発表した。BOSSは”Build Your Own Search Service”〔仮訳: あなた独自の検索サービスを構築する〕の頭字語で、デベロッパがYahooの検索インデクスに、他に例のないほど大きな自由度でアクセスできる。しかし昨年夏、Yahooの検索をMicrosoftが買収するという話が持ち上がり、BOSSの将来が危ぶまれた。BOSSのAPIを使ってプロジェクトを構築しているデベロッパは多いし、自分自身のビジネスを構築している者もいる。そしてYahooやMicrosoftから何の発表もないまま数か月が過ぎた今、BOSSデベロッパの一部が立ち上がった: 彼らは司法省と電話会議をして、自分たちの懸念を話し合おうというのだ。
〔訳注: この記事の続報がここにあります。〕
デベロッパたちが動揺するのも当然だ。GoogleやBingもAPIを提供しているが、しかしデベロッパに対し、収益化の方法、検索結果の提示方法、などなど多くの点で制約を課している。そういう制約はBOSSにはない。だから、BOSSを使ったプロジェクトをGoogleやBingのAPIを使うものに作りかえることは、容易ではない。
YahooのBOSSグループに所属する”Phil”と名乗るデベロッパが、彼の懸念を表明した書簡を司法省に送った。DOJはそれに返書を送り、当事者であるデベロッパたちと電話会議をしたいと言ったようだ（会議への参加のしかたなどの説明はBOSSグループのサイトにある）。本誌は司法省にその電話会議について確認したが、どうやらそれはホンモノだ。
以下に、Philが司法省に送った書簡を再掲しよう。ご覧のように、デベロッパたちが抱く懸念（心配）の概要を記している:
〔以下英文ママ〕
Dear sir/madam,
I represent a group of people who are concerned about a certain aspect of an
antitrust issue which we understand is currently being examined by your office.
The matter at hand is the Microsoft-Yahoo deal. Our concern is the following:In July 2008, Yahoo introduced a new program called Yahoo Boss. Boss is a
programming framework (called an API) which allows developers to create new
search engines which use the Yahoo database. In Yahoos own words:“BOSS (Build your Own Search Service) is Yahoo!’s open search web services
platform. The goal of BOSS is simple: to foster innovation in the search
industry. Developers, start-ups, and large Internet companies can use BOSS to
build and launch web-scale search products that utilize the entire Yahoo! Search
index. BOSS gives you access to Yahoo!’s investments in crawling and indexing,
ranking and relevancy algorithms, and powerful infrastructure. By combining your
unique assets and ideas with our search technology assets, BOSS is a platform
for the next generation of search innovation, serving hundreds of millions of
users across the Web.”(Quote from http://developer.yahoo.com/search/boss/)
The reason this program is so important is because before Boss, tens, if not
hundreds of millions of dollars would be required to start a new search engine.
Boss changed all that by making Yahoos own servers and search results available
to third parties. In the year and a half since, tens, if not hundreds of
companies and web developers have spent thousands of hours developing new
websites, web applications and search engines using Yahoo Boss. By May 2009,
Yahoo Boss was serving 30 million search queries a DAY through these websites
(http://www.ysearchblog.com/2009/05/19/key-milestones-for-searchmonkey-and-boss/\
). Clearly, Yahoo Boss is a unique program which has been the biggest catalyst
in search engine innovation and competition in years.Google and Microsoft do have their own similar APIS, but they are severely
limited. Googles API gives the user but a small number of search results, while
both Google and Microsofts apis disallow open monetization, thus rendering them
meaningless from a competitive point of view.Over the many months since the Microsoft-Yahoo deal was announced, countless
developers have been asking Yahoo for information on the future of Yahoo Boss,
yet in vain. Yahoo refuses to tell us whether the framework will be shut down or
not. This is even after the two companies announced that all the details of
their deal had been fleshed out. This has given us the distinct feeling that the
decision to shut down Boss has already been made, but that they prefer to keep
that quiet in order to not “rock the boat”.Obviously, this is of great concern to us. In addition to all the time and work
we have put in, Boss is the ONLY factor which has allowed broad and viable
competition in the search engine industry. Shutting down Boss would by default
mean shutting down all the websites using it, in addition to signifying the end
to the aforementioned competition.
（翻訳：iwatani(a.k.a. hiwa)）
