I was reading
Google Deprecates Their SOAP Search
API
by Brady Forrest but it's not really about SOAP, it's the removal of a
useful programmatic API entirely as the remaining AJAX Search
API according to the terms of
use, can only be
invoked by a <script> tag and is thus not really an API for anyone but
JavaScript or in-browser programmers.
So it's goodbye to mashups with the Google search.
The general speculation is that it has been removed so that Google can put their own adverts (or whatever they like) in search result pages, but it's not clear yet. Surely at the very least, goodwill has been lost. It does of course leave questions about what competitors will do with their REST and SOAP search APIs.
Or maybe it'll just start a secondary market selling Google SOAP API keys now that they are a limited item.