I agree. Google are controlling too much of the internet at the moment.
I do think we need to return to some kind of equilibrium
(not the film!), otherwise they could, in actuality, begin to restrict that data. Just like they did by putting an end to their
SOAP API! If Bing had
(or has) an API to tie in with such as
Yahoo's, then that would really be a big selling point for me.
I really don't know why Google doesn't allow us to parse their search results. It's as if they're saying, once it's in
our database, it's
our data and you may use it with restrictions applied.
Edit: Bing really does have an API! And it looks really good. I've uploaded an example of the XML document it gives you for the search term
php.