When Google filed suit against SerpApi, a small Austin-based company that scrapes Google search results and sells the structured data to paying customers, it seemed like a straightforward case of a tech giant swatting away an irritant. But a federal judge’s recent decision to let most of SerpApi’s counterclaims proceed has transformed the case into something far more consequential — a legal contest that could redefine how courts view web scraping, terms of service enforcement, and the boundaries of monopoly power in the search industry.
The case, filed in the Northern District of California, pits Google against a company founded by Ilya Doroshenko that operates what amounts to a search-results-as-a-service business. SerpApi uses automated tools to query Google’s search engine and then packages the results — including snippets, rankings, ads, and other data — into structured formats that developers and businesses can use for SEO analysis, market research, and competitive intelligence. Google alleges this constitutes a violation of its Terms of Service, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), and amounts to misappropriation of trade secrets, among other claims.
SerpApi Fires Back With Antitrust Counterclaims
SerpApi did not simply play defense. The company filed counterclaims alleging that Google’s lawsuit is itself an anticompetitive act — an attempt by a monopolist to crush a smaller competitor and maintain its stranglehold on search data. SerpApi argues that Google’s search results, compiled from publicly available web pages, should not be treated as proprietary information, and that Google’s aggressive legal posture is designed to eliminate companies that provide alternative access to search data.
As reported by The Verge, Google moved to dismiss SerpApi’s counterclaims, but U.S. Magistrate Judge Susan van Keulen largely denied the motion in a ruling that surprised many legal observers. The judge allowed SerpApi’s antitrust counterclaims to move forward, finding that the scraping company had plausibly alleged that Google holds monopoly power in the search market and that its lawsuit could constitute exclusionary conduct. The court did dismiss some narrower claims but left the core antitrust arguments intact, setting the stage for what could become a landmark trial.
The Terms of Service Question
At the heart of Google’s case is a seemingly simple argument: SerpApi agreed to Google’s Terms of Service, which prohibit automated access to its search results, and then violated those terms on a massive, commercial scale. Google contends that SerpApi’s scraping operations impose real costs on its infrastructure, degrade the user experience, and free-ride on billions of dollars of investment in search technology.
SerpApi counters that Google’s Terms of Service are contracts of adhesion — take-it-or-leave-it agreements that no reasonable person reads or meaningfully consents to — and that enforcing them to prevent all scraping would give Google unchecked control over information that originates from third-party websites. The company also argues that Google itself built its empire by scraping the open web, and that allowing Google to lock down access to search results would be deeply hypocritical and harmful to competition.
A Case With Echoes of hiQ v. LinkedIn
The legal questions raised here are not entirely new. The Ninth Circuit’s decision in hiQ Labs v. LinkedIn established that scraping publicly available data does not necessarily violate the CFAA, a ruling that sent shockwaves through the tech industry. But that case involved data that was publicly accessible without any login or terms agreement. Google’s search results occupy a more ambiguous space — they are publicly viewable, but accessing them at scale through automated means arguably crosses a different line.
Judge van Keulen’s ruling suggests the court sees enough factual complexity here to warrant full litigation rather than early dismissal. The judge noted that SerpApi had adequately alleged a relevant market — search engine results data — in which Google holds dominant share, and that Google’s enforcement actions could plausibly be seen as efforts to maintain that dominance rather than simply protect its intellectual property. This framing is significant because it shifts the narrative from a simple breach-of-contract dispute to a contest over market power and access to information.
The Broader Industry Implications
The timing of this case is notable. Google is already under enormous legal pressure on multiple fronts. The U.S. Department of Justice won a historic antitrust ruling against Google in August 2024, with Judge Amit Mehta finding that the company had illegally maintained its search monopoly through exclusive distribution agreements. That case is now in a remedies phase where the government has proposed measures including potentially forcing Google to divest its Chrome browser. A separate DOJ antitrust case targeting Google’s advertising technology business went to trial in late 2024.
Against this backdrop, the SerpApi case adds another dimension to the question of what obligations, if any, a monopolist has to allow third-party access to its platform. If Google can use Terms of Service to block all automated access to search results, it effectively controls not just the search engine but the entire secondary market for search data — a market that includes SEO tools, academic researchers, journalists, and competitive intelligence firms that rely on understanding how Google’s algorithms work.
What Google Stands to Lose
Google’s legal team has framed the case in narrow terms, arguing that SerpApi is simply a commercial actor that profits by reselling Google’s work product without permission. In court filings, Google has emphasized the scale of SerpApi’s operations, noting that the company sends millions of automated queries to Google’s servers and charges customers for the resulting data. Google argues this is straightforward misappropriation, regardless of any antitrust considerations.
But the risk for Google is that a court could rule that its Terms of Service cannot be used as an anticompetitive weapon — that there are limits to how a monopolist can restrict access to a product that has become essential infrastructure for the modern internet. Such a ruling would not necessarily mean that all scraping is permissible, but it could establish that dominant platforms must tolerate some degree of automated access, particularly when the alternative is a complete information asymmetry that reinforces monopoly power.
SerpApi’s Uphill Battle
For all the attention the case has received, SerpApi faces significant challenges. Surviving a motion to dismiss is not the same as winning at trial. The company will need to prove not just that Google has monopoly power — which, after the DOJ ruling, may be easier than it once was — but that Google’s specific enforcement of its Terms of Service against SerpApi constitutes anticompetitive conduct rather than legitimate business protection. Courts have historically been reluctant to tell companies they cannot enforce their own contractual terms, even when those companies hold dominant market positions.
There is also the question of damages. SerpApi will need to demonstrate concrete harm from Google’s actions, which could be difficult for a company whose entire business model depends on accessing a platform it does not own. Google will likely argue that SerpApi has no right to build a business on the back of Google’s infrastructure without permission, and that any harm SerpApi suffers is self-inflicted.
The AI Training Data Connection
The case also intersects with one of the most contentious issues in technology today: the use of scraped data to train artificial intelligence models. Many AI companies, including OpenAI, have faced scrutiny and litigation over their practice of scraping web content to build training datasets. Google itself uses vast quantities of web data to train its own AI systems, including the Gemini family of models. If courts begin to draw firmer lines around what can and cannot be scraped — and under what circumstances — the implications will extend far beyond the SerpApi dispute.
As The Verge noted, the case highlights a fundamental tension in how the internet works: the web was built on the principle of open access to information, but the companies that have become its gatekeepers increasingly seek to control who can access that information and on what terms. SerpApi’s argument, stripped to its essence, is that Google cannot have it both ways — it cannot scrape the entire web to build its search engine and then sue anyone who scrapes Google’s presentation of that same information.
What Comes Next in This High-Stakes Standoff
With the motion to dismiss largely denied, the case now moves toward discovery and potentially trial. Both sides will have the opportunity to gather evidence, depose witnesses, and build their factual records. For Google, the discovery process could be uncomfortable, potentially exposing internal communications about how the company views competition in the search data market and why it chose to pursue litigation against SerpApi rather than other scrapers.
For the broader tech industry, the case is being watched closely. Companies that depend on access to search data — from small SEO shops to large enterprise analytics firms — have a direct stake in the outcome. If Google prevails, it will reinforce the principle that platform operators can use contractual terms to control all access to their services, automated or otherwise. If SerpApi prevails, it could open the door to a new legal framework that limits how dominant platforms can restrict access to data that originates from the public web. Either way, the case is shaping up to be one of the most important scraping and antitrust disputes in years, with consequences that will ripple through the technology sector for a long time to come.