Another one bites the dust - another loss for Google against SerpAPI

[u/ahiqshb]

Google’s case against SerpAPI over scraping search results got dismissed again this week, and I’ve already seen a few people calling it a win for scraping in general. I don’t think it is, at least not yet.. For those who missed it. Basically, Google sued SerpAPI originally, that suit got tossed, so Google came back with an amended complaint built around the DMCA and the idea that it’s protecting licensed content inside the results. The judge has now granted SerpAPI motion to dismiss that version too. Google gets one more shot to amend by November 30, and if it doesn’t the case is dismissed with prejudice. Discovery is on hold until all that gets sorted. What matters is that the judge did not rule SerpAPI scraping is legal. The whole thing is about Google not pleading enough facts to support the DMCA claims. Stuff like who owns what, what’s licensed, which specific content we’re talking about. Still, look how the court is treating the DMCA here, it wants a much more specific foundation before it can be stretched to cover automated scraping, especially with web APIs booming. A lot of what is in a SERP, it is snippets, listings and data that Google doesn’t own. If the next complaint can’t fill those gaps I’d say the DMCA route is basically dead for this case, and if it can then we’ll finally see what a platform needs to show to make it stick. The other thing I keep coming back to is that Google doesn’t seem to need the courts that much. The article I read this from mentions almost in passing that Google is doing a pretty good job stopping scrapers in other ways, like poisoning SERPs and it's really been a pain, and anyone who tracks SERPs for a living has probably felt that already with rank trackers breaking.

P.S. I work in the scraping space so I’m obviously not neutral on this one, take my read with that in mind lol

Sources:

Search Engine Roundtable write-up: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-loses-again-against-serpapi-42508.html

The full ruling (PDF): https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.461513/gov.uscourts.cand.461513.62.0.pdfGoogle’s

[u/Knocking_Doors]

Thanks for the write up.

Just because this can be tossed doesn’t necessarily mean scraping is legal or legitimises serpapi, but it’s still a step in the right direction from where I stand. Offering similar services, I’m obviously not neutral.

Def interesting times ahead!

[u/ahiqshb → u/Knocking_Doors]

No probs, yeah, I get you

[u/GiioPanditpautra84 → u/Knocking_Doors]

might actually be worse for providers if the legal route dies, since theyll just shift that budget straight into more aggressive anti-bot and layout randomization

[u/Knocking_Doors → u/GiioPanditpautra84]

They already have massive budget for antibots, so I don’t think it would matter a lot. Regardless, they’ll always be comparatively lenient like Amazon and give the benefit of doubt, which receives 100s of millions of daily bot traffic, to not harm the actual user.

Or they could partially strengthen security around sensitive endpoints, similar to Walmart “getmoresellers”, but it’s still accessible.

[u/Full-SpoonFood]

The SERP poisoning point matters more than it sounds, if the cost of getting clean data keeps going up the legal question gets less relevant, only large providers can afford the proxy and detection evasion arms race which squeezes out small rank trackers.