In a significant legal move, tech giant Google has initiated a federal lawsuit against SerpApi, a Texas-based data scraping company. The lawsuit, filed in the Northern District of California, accuses SerpApi of systematically bypassing Google's security protocols to harvest and commercially resell copyrighted content from its search results.
Allegations of Deceptive Scraping and Massive Scale
According to a detailed 13-page complaint, SerpApi is alleged to have used sophisticated methods to mimic human behaviour and evade Google's technological defences. The company reportedly deployed hundreds of millions of fake search requests, utilising vast networks of bots that constantly changed their identifiers to avoid detection.
Google claims that SerpApi's activities escalated dramatically, with query volumes surging by an astonishing 25,000% over the past two years. The lawsuit specifically mentions that SerpApi used "shady back doors," disguised its automated crawlers, and misrepresented device and location data to defeat security challenges like the newly deployed SearchGuard.
"SerpApi deceptively takes content that Google licenses from others... and then resells it for a fee. In doing so, it willfully disregards the rights and directives of websites and providers whose content appears in Search," Google stated.
Legal Precedent and Industry Backing
Google is not the first major platform to take legal action against SerpApi. In October 2024, social media platform Reddit filed a similar lawsuit, comparing SerpApi's actions to those of a "bank robber" for siphoning content via Google search to train AI models like Perplexity.
A Reddit spokesperson expressed support for Google's lawsuit, stating they were "encouraged" by the action and noting that bad actors are "turning the openness of the internet against itself."
SerpApi's Defence and Google's Demands
In response to the allegations, SerpApi has vowed to mount a vigorous defence. The company argues that it merely provides access to publicly viewable information. "The information we provide is the same information any person can see in their browser without signing in. We believe this lawsuit is an effort to stifle competition from the innovators who rely on our services," SerpApi said.
However, Google is seeking substantial legal remedies. The company has asked the court for a permanent order to block SerpApi's scraping operations. Furthermore, Google is pursuing statutory damages that could reach up to $2,500 for each individual violation, a sum that could total millions given the scale of the alleged scraping.
This lawsuit underscores the growing tension between the open web and the commercial use of publicly accessible data, especially for feeding the rapidly expanding artificial intelligence industry.
