Does Google Images allow hotlinking?

Question

I wrote a script that uses the Google Images JSON API to automatically fetch thumbnails for posts. I'm currently linking directly to the thumbnail (eg. http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTok4m3DWNRv8gxMDTE0bwj8m-jYl2UGdlbc7ig158m0XosD-lcQEIFcg). Does Google allow that?

If not, I should be allowed to download the thumbnails to my server right?

Answer 1

Its all about traffic. If your app will make tons of traffic, they can ban your server. Anyway, better/best way is to ask them about this subject.

Also this might help you : Google Terms of Service Highlights

Answer 2

I see problems when you download the image thumbnail to your server and render. Images shown in search results might be copyrighted/inappropriate. They are crawled images so the owner can request google to remove at anytime. On contrary, if you cache them locally and render, I see the workflow is broken and you might be rendering image that ideally should have been revoked.

Coming back to hot linking, can you explain bit more on the actual usage context. What API you are using, what are you searching at, do you own the website / posts that you are filtering?

Also image search API is deprecated one. By terms it would be active only for three years since notice.