Looks like Amazon is making some changes to their API. First they’re changing the name to ‘Product Advertising API’, which is fine with me. But it looks like they’re changing how you make calls. Based on the email sent they’re requiring authentication with each API call. Not sure what kind of impact, if any, this will cause. They are implementing this change on May 11 and will finish up by August 15th.

I personally will want to wait until the last minute to ensure the bugs were worked out. Unfortunately, my earnings with Amazon are always low, so it’ll be hard to gauge if something is wrong after the roll out.

Here is a portion of the letter sent out to associates related to the API:

“In addition to the new name, signatures will be necessary to authenticate each call to the Product Advertising API. This requirement will be phased in starting May 11, 2009, and by August 15, 2009, all calls to the Product Advertising API must be authenticated or they will not be processed. For pointers on how you can easily authenticate requests to the Product Advertising API, please refer to the developer guide, available here (http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/AWSECommerceService/latest/DG/).”