YouTube API Services - Subject API Services | YouTube

YouTube published its updated API Services Terms of Service (the "Updated Terms") on August 11, 2016. The Updated Terms are effective as of February 10, 2017. They state (in Section 14) that when YouTube intends to make backward-incompatible changes to YouTube API services, YouTube will announce those changes and try to continue to maintain the software code for six months after the announcement.

This page identifies the Subject API Services referenced in section 14.3 (Special Terms) of the Updated Terms and explains how that section of the Updated Terms affects actual deprecation dates. Prior to the publication of the revised Terms, the Subject API Services were already subject to a one-year deprecation policy. To honor that policy, after the Updated Terms become effective on February 10, 2017, the Subject API Services will, temporarily, be subject to different deprecation rules than other services.

Understanding deprecation dates

In the event of backward-incompatible changes to Subject API Services, YouTube will use reasonable efforts to maintain code until at least February 10, 2018, which is one year after the Updated Terms become effective. For other services, YouTube will try to continue to maintain the software code for six months from the date those changes are announced.

It is also important to recognize that Subject API Services (and other services) can still be deprecated before the Updated Terms become effective. In such cases, the deprecation policy defined in the Terms of Service that is effective until February 9, 2017 (the "Original Terms", still applies. (That deprecation policy only applies to the Subject API Services as explained at https://developers.google.com/youtube/youtube-api-list.)

The table below identifies hypothetical deprecation announcement dates. For each date, the table indicates whether the Original Terms or the Updated Terms would apply. (Again, the Original Terms are in effect until February 9, 2017.) The final column identifies the date until which YouTube will try to maintain the code for the deprecated service.

Announcement date	Applicable Terms	Target sunset date
November 1, 2016	Original Terms	November 1, 2017
March 1, 2017	Revised Terms	February 10, 2018
October 1, 2017	Revised Terms	April 1, 2018

Subject API Services

The following sections define the Subject API Services. For completeness, these sections also identify fully deprecated API services. Those fully deprecated services are no longer subject to the deprecation policy defined in the Original Terms, and they will not be covered under the Updated Terms either.

Exemptions: Some features of Subject API Services are not subject to the rules defined in Section 14.3 of the Updated Terms because those features were also not subject to the deprecation policy defined under the Original Terms. Those features are identified as exemptions in the list of subject services below.

When an exemption applies to an object property, it also applies to any of that property's child properties. In addition, the exemption applies to the ability to retrieve, set, modify, or delete values of the property or its child properties as well as to the property values themselves.

YouTube Data API, v3

Documentation
Exemptions
- The following channel resource properties:
- The guideCategory resource and its methods.
- The search.list method's safeSearch parameter and its values.
- The video resource's status.publishAt property.

YouTube IFrame Player API

Documentation

YouTube Reporting API

Documentation
Exemptions
- Non-core dimensions. (See the dimension definitions to determine whether individual dimensions are considered core dimensions.)
- Non-core metrics. (See the metric definitions to determine whether individual metrics are considered core metrics.)

YouTube Analytics API

Documentation
Exemptions
- Non-core dimensions. (See the dimension definitions to determine whether individual dimensions are considered core dimensions.)
- Non-core metrics. (See the metric definitions to determine whether individual metrics are considered core metrics.)

Fully deprecated API Services

The following API services are fully deprecated. They were subject to the deprecation policy set forth in the Original Terms and the deprecation period has ended. YouTube is neither obligated to announce breaking changes to these services nor to continue supporting them:

YouTube API Services - Subject API Services