January 8, 2026
Scrapers gonna scrape, lawyers gonna lawyer
Why we're taking legal action against SerpApi's unlawful scraping
Internet calls out Google’s ‘pot vs kettle’ as scraping lawsuit sparks a messy brawl
TLDR: Google sued SerpApi for dodging protections to scrape and resell content. Commenters accuse Google of hypocrisy, question its AI’s respect for site rules, and warn creators are losing traffic—why it matters: this fight could decide who controls online content access: platforms, scrapers, or the sites themselves.
Google just sued SerpApi, saying the company sneaks past defenses, grabs licensed images and real‑time data, then resells it. Google insists it follows robots.txt (a website’s “do not enter” sign for bots) and only sues as a last resort. The community? Exploding with “pot vs kettle” jokes and side‑eye. ddtaylor blasts: Google built its empire by scraping and even pushed AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages), which many saw as forcing sites into Google’s format. Now they’re mad when someone else scrapes? Cue the collective eye roll.
Others pile on with AI angst: did Gemini—Google’s big chatbot—respect robots.txt while training? polishdude20 wonders if “everyone” in AI just scrapes regardless, while gergo_b drops the meme: “well, well, well, how the turntables.” Meanwhile, the human cost gets dragged in: tannhaeuser claims even companies like Tailwind felt pain as Google’s AI answers keep users on Google, not visiting the original sites. The thread is a tug‑of‑war between “data wants to be free” and “creators deserve control.” One user even links past drama here, suggesting this fight’s been brewing for a while. The mood: spicy, skeptical, and very online. Whether the court sees SerpApi as a villain or just Google meeting its mirror, the crowd’s already picked their popcorn.
Key Points
- •Google filed a lawsuit against SerpApi to stop alleged unlawful scraping of content appearing in Google Search results.
- •Google claims SerpApi circumvents security measures by cloaking, using large bot networks, and rotating fake crawler names.
- •Google alleges SerpApi resells content that Google licenses, including images in Knowledge Panels and real-time Search data.
- •Google states it follows industry-standard crawling protocols and honors websites’ directives, unlike the alleged practices of SerpApi.
- •Google says the scraping activity has increased significantly over the past year and frames litigation as a last resort when technical protections are bypassed.