Clarifying the deprecation policy for Google APIs and services

By Adam Feldman, APIs Product Manager

We know that deprecation policies can be complex. But it shouldn’t be hard for you to determine which features of our APIs and services are covered by a deprecation policy and which ones aren’t. To date, we’ve often used the label “Experimental” to indicate that certain new versions, features, or functionality don’t have the deprecation policy. But we know you don’t want to hunt through documentation looking for what is “Experimental” and what isn’t.

So starting today, for each API or service that has the deprecation policy, we are creating an explicit list of what is covered by that policy. For instance, here’s what this list will look like for the Google Maps APIs:

We are not adding or subtracting anything, but only changing how we display this information to make it easier to locate and understand. This change will be fully rolled out in the coming weeks. Please refer to each API or service’s terms of service for more information. We hope this will make your life easier so you get back to your code sooner!


Adam Feldman is a Product Manager, focusing on all of Google's APIs and making sure Google provides the best possible platform to developers.

Posted by Scott Knaster, Editor