>>If we're talking specifically Google, than security's a minor issue.
>
>I woudln't say that. Most popular search engine in the world. Their bucks come from licenseing their technology. If they can be accessed programtically without limit, thats a bad thing.

How would SSL help that???

They need tight control over logs to tell who's abusing the service.

>Yeah, I thought there was somethign going on with how the key was being passed, but I guess I wasn't sure.

That's a server side implementation and a typical example of how security must be managed today in Web Services - not through the system layer, but at the application layer.