They were forced to...
I agree with both points, but I see a little deeper issue that might be worth discussing. There have been several "keyword tools" out there that have been weighing down Google servers with multiple queries for a few years now. I am even guilty of using a few. I think that they finally realized that one of the main "values' to using Google at all for those of us (merchants and advertisers) that pay the bills, was the ability to see search number results, either by artificially hijacking them, or providing them voluntarily. "The pirates have flooded over the bough, but instead of slaughter, they were co-opted off the deck without even a single coin of gold taken with them." I don't know why they were so stubborn to begin with. I am now happy with Google for a change. I no longer have to reset my IP weekly just to get a straight answer out of them.:-D