Google Sues SerpApi Over Scraping and Reselling Search Data (searchengineland.com)
- Reference: 0180426181
- News link: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/12/19/2317247/google-sues-serpapi-over-scraping-and-reselling-search-data
- Source link: https://searchengineland.com/google-sues-serpapi-466541
> Google [1]said today that it is suing SerpApi, accusing the company of [2]bypassing security protections to scrape, harvest, and resell copyrighted content from Google Search results . The allegations: Google said SerpApi:
>
> -Circumvented Google's security measures and industry-standard crawling controls.
> -Ignored website directives that specify whether content can be accessed.
> -Used cloaking, rotating bot identities, and large bot networks to scrape content at scale.
> -Took licensed content from Search features, including images and real-time data, and resold it for profit.
>
> What Google is saying. "Stealthy scrapers like SerpApi override [crawling] directives and give sites no choice at all," Google wrote, calling the alleged scraping "brazen" and "unlawful." Google said SerpApi's activity "increased dramatically over the past year." [...] If Google wins, reliable SERP data could become harder to get, more expensive, or both -- especially for teams that rely on tools powered by services like SerpApi. As AI already reduces clicks and transparency, Google now appears intent on making it even harder for brands to understand how Search works, how they appear in results, and how to measure success.
[1] https://blog.google/technology/safety-security/serpapi-lawsuit/
[2] https://searchengineland.com/google-sues-serpapi-466541
Surprised it took this long (Score:2)
They have been selling a Google API that Google itself refuses to sell for years.
I've wondered how they hadn't been sued before.
Is capitalism holding progress back? (Score:1)
What if engineers were freed from working for "be evil" finance guys so they could develop software they wanted to use and share it because they got a generous, inflation-proofed basic income?
Monopoly Behavior (Score:1)
Il really trying ting to understand whatâ(TM) theyâ(TM)re alleging that hasnâ(TM)t been standard practice (even by Google) for literally as long as the web has existed.
Honestly, this sounds like textbook monopoly behavior.
And so? (Score:2)
I am sympathetic to creators (including Google) who are harmed by new technology.
But where is the harm? I don't see anywhere in the article where Google even alleges harm was caused.
Google suing over data theft is hilarious (Score:1)
To quote the Princess Bride: You are trying to kidnap what I have rightfully stolen!
What is it? (Score:1)
The end of the article says that if Google wins their lawsuit then serp data will be harder to obtain.
What is serp data and what would we want it for?
Re: (Score:2)
Why do you care? It's just one AI industry company complaining about another AI industry company scraping their content and repackaging it in a different way. They'll figure things out amongst themselves, and if not, it won't make a difference. It's not like Copyright is consistently enforced these days.
Re: What is it? (Score:1)
Itâ(TM)s in its name. SERP = Search Engine Results Page. Theyâ(TM)re scrapes of Google SERPs. This is fallout from the Reddit license where Reddit decided to collect rent from Google and others for scraping their content. Apparently Reddit and Google decided to put Google only visible stuff on their pages (which is explicitly illegal under Googleâ(TM)s TOS, and has resulted in index banning) and then served up this secret content via SerpAPI.
Scraping Google SERPs has been standard behavior fo
It is the definition of irony by example (Score:2)
"A juxtaposition of what, on the surface, appears to be the case with what is actually the case" , as the Wikipedia tells us.
google, which built its empire on bypassing security protections to scrape data, which it then showed to the users, is angry that someone shrewder is using the same approach - despite the many cases in court where the same google argued the exactly opposite point.
Re: (Score:2)
They take search engine output and return it in JSON format [1]picture here [serpapi.com]. Apparently some AI companies recently started using their API to get a lot of search results from Google.
[1] https://serpapi.com/