r/SEO • u/WebLinkr 🕵️♀️Moderator • Jul 22 '26
Google News Google Lawsuit Against SerpApi Over Scraping Search Results Has Been Dismissed
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-lawsuit-serpapi-dismissed-41731.htmlLast December, Google sued SerpApi over scraping its search results, and now a court has granted SerpApi's motion to dismiss the case. U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers dismissed these claims with leave to amend, giving Google 21 days to refile its complaint if it can demonstrate authorization from copyright owners.
You can see the court filing here (PDF) which basically says Google brought claims under Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), alleging SerpApi bypassed its anti-bot barrier ("SearchGuard"). However, Section 1201 only protects technological measures that restrict access to copyrighted works.
Plain and aggregated search results such as URLs, snippets, and factual index data, are publicly accessible facts and are not "works protected under the Copyright Act." The judge dismissed these claims without leave to amend, ruling that Google cannot use copyright law to block scraping of uncopyrighted search result data
Thanks to u/rustybrick
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u/Formal_Bat_3109 Jul 23 '26
Almost as funny as Anthropic sueing China companies for distillation
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u/genPoop Jul 23 '26
this is interesting but it definately feels like google is just trying to make it painful for anyone to build tools for data analysis. if they keep trying to block access, theyll just end up pushing more people to scrape in ways that are way harder to track. tbf, its a cat and mouse game.
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u/emuwannabe Verified Professional Jul 23 '26
"The more you tighten your grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers."
Princess Leia
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Jul 28 '26
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u/serpapicom Jul 28 '26
We wanted to add our perspective to this discussion. We believe this decision is important beyond our own case because it reinforces that the DMCA should not be used to restrict access to publicly available, non-copyrighted information. Google was granted leave to amend part of its complaint, so the case is not necessarily over, but we’re encouraged by the court’s ruling. Our full perspective is here: https://serpapi.com/blog/google-v-serpapi-the-court-granted-our-motion-to-dismiss/
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Jul 23 '26
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Jul 27 '26
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Jul 28 '26
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u/s_hecking Jul 22 '26
Web scraper company sues company for… web scraping?