Yahoo! Address Book API

The Yahoo! Address Book (AB) API is a JSON/XML interface for accessing and updating the Yahoo! Address Book using a web service. It can be used to look up addresses for auto-completion of emails, to add addresses for future shipping information, to obtain unique identifiers for network invites, or to sync with another address book.

How Do I Get Started?

1. Get an Application ID

   You will need to obtain an Application ID (AppID) in order for your application to have access to the address book. Select “Yahoo! Address Book with Read Only access”.

2. Learn about BBAuth

   The Yahoo! Address Book API utilizes Browser Based Authentication (BBAuth) as a mechanism for users to authorize your application to access their Address Book data.

3. Read the Documentation

   The Yahoo! Address Book API is well documented and has sample code in the documentation. Documentation is located here.

Using the API or Web Service

Overview

Typical uses of the API include email address auto-complete and contact look up, social network invitations, phone number look up for mobile messaging and postal addressees for shopping and photo sharing services. The functions supported by the API are as follows:

• Search/Query: The ability to construct a search and return contact records that match a certain set of criteria based on attribute values. Often used for real time lookup.
• Updating of Contact Data: The ability to create, modify and delete contact information. The Address Book API includes checks during create or update actions to auto-merge identical contacts to reduce the number of duplicates in a user's address book.
  Note: Write-access to the Yahoo! Address Book is available on a case by case basis. If your application requires the ability to update users address books, please contact us by email for further assistance.
• Synchronization: The ability to determine if contact information has changed since last access for a specific user for synchronization based applications.

Tools and Documentation

The Yahoo! Address Book API documentation is available in pdf or HTML formats for viewing online. The Yahoo! Address Book API Documentation contains four sections:

• Overview: A general overview of what the Yahoo! Address Book API is, how it works, and the workflow for developing and publishing your own applications.
• Getting Started: Basic instructions for setting up access to the Yahoo! Address Book API and examples for creating an auto-complete application.
• Developer Guide: The Yahoo! Address Book API supported methods.
• API Reference: A reference to the Yahoo! Address Book schema and interfaces in the Yahoo! Address Book API and code examples.

Support & Community

Questions and suggestions on the Yahoo! Address Book API are discussed on the Yahoo! Address Book Developer Community mailing list. If you have questions or need technical support, please use this Yahoo! group.

Rate Limits

The Yahoo! Address Book API is limited to 5,000 queries per IP per day. If your service requires access beyond that rate, please contact us by email for further assistance.

Terms of Use

Use of the Yahoo! Address Book API is governed by the Yahoo! Address Book API Terms of Use.