TL;DR
Google's general counsel announced a lawsuit against scraping firm SerpApi, accusing its bots of evading security and taking copyrighted material that appears in Search. The company says SerpApi uses cloaking, large bot networks and fake identifiers to harvest and resell licensed content.
What happened
On Dec. 19, 2025, Google said it filed a lawsuit against SerpApi, a company that provides scraped search results for pay. In a blog post by General Counsel Halimah DeLaine Prado, Google accused SerpApi of sidestepping technical protections and website directives that control access to copyrighted content shown in Google Search. The post says SerpApi employs tactics such as cloaking, overwhelming sites with bot traffic, and rotating misleading crawler identities to extract material that Google licenses from third parties — including images used in Knowledge Panels and real-time Search features — and then resells that content. Google framed the legal filing as a last-resort step after its security measures were bypassed and noted this action follows other lawsuits by websites and similar complaints against scraping services. The company emphasized it follows industry crawling standards and aims to protect site owners’ choices over how their content is accessed.
Why it matters
- If proven, the suit challenges practices used by some scraping services that bypass site controls and could affect how licensed search content is reused.
- The case highlights tensions between automated data collection for commercial resale and website owners’ rights and technical directives.
- A court decision could influence industry behavior and platform enforcement approaches to stealthy scraping and bot traffic.
Key facts
- Google publicly announced it filed a lawsuit against SerpApi on Dec. 19, 2025.
- The company alleges SerpApi circumvented security measures meant to protect copyrighted content that appears in Google Search.
- Google says it follows industry-standard crawling protocols and respects websites’ directives about crawling.
- SerpApi is accused of using cloaking, massive bot networks and fake, constantly changing crawler names to harvest content.
- Google alleges SerpApi takes content Google licenses from others — such as images in Knowledge Panels and real-time Search data — and resells it.
- Google described the legal filing as part of a pattern of litigation against bad actors and said it uses legal action as a last resort.
- The post noted an increase in this kind of unlawful scraping activity over the past year.
- The announcement follows legal actions other websites have previously taken against SerpApi and similar companies.
What to watch next
- Whether the court grants any preliminary relief or injunctions against SerpApi (not confirmed in the source).
- Outcomes of other ongoing or related lawsuits involving SerpApi and scraping firms, and whether they produce precedent.
- Any public response or defense from SerpApi addressing Google’s allegations (not confirmed in the source).
Quick glossary
- Web scraping: Automated extraction of information from websites using bots or scripts.
- Cloaking: A technique where a service presents different content or identities to automated crawlers than to regular users, often to evade detection.
- Crawler (bot): Software that automatically visits websites to index or collect information; also called spiders or bots.
- Knowledge Panel: A search result feature that displays summarized information about entities such as people, places, organizations or topics.
- robots.txt: A standard text file websites use to communicate crawl directives to automated agents about which parts of a site may be accessed.
Reader FAQ
What does Google say SerpApi did?
Google alleges SerpApi bypassed security measures and website directives to scrape copyrighted content that appears in Search.
Is Google seeking specific remedies in court?
Not confirmed in the source.
Has SerpApi responded to the allegations?
Not confirmed in the source.
Did Google say this is an isolated incident?
No; Google said such scraping activity has risen dramatically over the past year and that other websites have taken related legal action.
INNOVATION & AI TECHNOLOGY SAFETY & SECURITY Why we’re taking legal action against SerpApi’s unlawful scraping Dec 19, 2025 · 1 min read Share Halimah DeLaine Prado General Counsel Listen…
Sources
- Why we're taking legal action against SerpApi's unlawful scraping
- Why we're taking legal action against SerpApi's unlawful …
- Google Sues SerpApi for 'Parasitic' Scraping and …
- Google sues SerpApi over scraping and reselling …
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