Google has filed a lawsuit against SerpApi, a web-scraping company that offers an API mimicking human search behavior, marking the latest conflict over data access for training and operating AI large language models (LLMs).
Many AI models today rely on data scraped from websites, often without site owners’ permission, leading to legal battles as copyright holders push back by suing AI firms or negotiating costly licensing deals.
Google itself plays a dual role in this fight, both curating one of the largest datasets globally and developing its own LLMs, such as Gemini, which it integrates into services like search.
Google views companies like SerpApi, which seek access to its curated data to build competing AI products, as a threat. In a blog post, Google General Counsel Halimah DeLaine Prado accused SerpApi of “circumventing security measures protecting others’ copyrighted content that appears in Google search results.” She stated the lawsuit aims to stop SerpApi’s “malicious scraping,” which violates website owners’ and rightsholders’ control over their content.
Prado clarified that while Google scrapes websites for search results, the lawsuit targets SerpApi’s access to content Google has licensed or created, such as images in Knowledge Panels and real-time data in Search features. She accused SerpApi of reselling this licensed content for profit without respecting the rights of content providers.
SerpApi denied any wrongdoing, asserting that it provides access to public search data available to anyone via a browser. The company claimed the lawsuit is an attempt to stifle competition and innovation in AI, security, browsers, and productivity tools. Citing the First Amendment, SerpApi stated it operates within legal boundaries, including fair use, and vowed to vigorously defend its business model in court.
This lawsuit highlights the growing tensions over data ownership and access in the rapidly evolving AI landscape, as companies seek to balance innovation with copyright protections.
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