What does this mean: "you may not use multiple application API keys for the same use case"?

arghodayah · 2014-01-22T07:51:08.000Z

I need to retrieve data about users, the data include tweets, following, and followers numbers. Is it legal to create hundreds of API keys associated with one account in order to be able to retrieve that huge amount of data in presence of the limit of 180 requests in each 15 minutes? Would that be a reason to suspend the created apps or the account associated with the apps? Or is there any other easy way to do that?

And does this go wrong with “you may not use multiple application API keys for the same use case”?

episod · 2014-01-22T21:08:36.000Z

This would typically be considered an attempt to circumvent rate limits. If your purpose is to collect data on many users without having those users participate directly in your collection by authorizing your application to work on their behalf, you are limited to the data you can collect given the rate limits provided to you for a single application. It might take you longer to obtain the information you’re after.

If there’s something you want to do that’s not possible within the rate limits, you should consider it not possible to do rather than something to find a workaround for.

arghodayah · 2014-01-22T21:19:12.000Z

arghodayah · 2014-01-22T21:17:27.000Z

Thanks for your reply.

But the data I want is public for everyone, and I want it periodically, So one API key cannot do that!

Is there any other solution?