Google has filed a lawsuit against SerpApi, a web scraping company, alleging that it has been systematically harvesting search results “at an astonishing scale.” The tech giant claims SerpApi’s actions constitute a violation of federal law and are designed to circumvent technological protections put in place to safeguard its copyrighted content and partner relationships.

At the heart of Google’s complaint is a security measure named SearchGuard, which was deployed in January 2025. This system is intended to restrict unauthorized access to Google’s search results pages. However, the lawsuit asserts that SerpApi developed and continues to employ methods to bypass these defenses, effectively undermining Google’s efforts to control access to its data.

SerpApi’s alleged strategy involves masking hundreds of millions of automated queries sent to Google daily. The company reportedly disguises these requests to appear as if they originate from legitimate human users. This misrepresentation is a key point of contention in Google’s legal filing.

According to the lawsuit, SerpApi’s founder has described their process as “creating fake browsers using a multitude of IP addresses that Google sees as normal users.” This sophisticated evasion tactic is central to Google’s claim that SerpApi is engaging in widespread misrepresentations and evasions to access proprietary search data.

Google argues that SerpApi’s continuous efforts to circumvent SearchGuard represent a persistent violation of federal law. The company emphasizes that these actions are not isolated incidents but a sustained campaign to exploit its search engine’s output for commercial gain without proper authorization or compensation.

The legal action highlights the ongoing tension between search engine providers and data scraping services. Google seeks to protect its substantial investment in generating and organizing search results, as well as the commercial agreements it has with content partners, from what it views as unauthorized and harmful exploitation.

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Keywords: Google lawsuit, web scraping, SerpApi, search results, data harvesting, SearchGuard, copyright infringement, federal law violation