MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA — In a historic twist of irony so pure it could power a data center, Google has filed a lawsuit against SerpApi for scraping Google Search results—an act Google sternly believes is reserved exclusively for Google, its bots, and its seventeen AI initiatives currently scraping the rest of the internet for free.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Hypocrisy, alleges that SerpApi “used deceptive means” to access and extract search results, undermining Google’s sacred right to monetize everyone else’s content before anyone else can.
“This is a direct threat to our business model,” said a Google spokesperson, adjusting their irony-resistant sunglasses. “If companies like SerpApi are allowed to scrape the internet and sell the data, how will we maintain our moral high ground while doing the exact same thing but with better PR?”
The legal complaint highlights that SerpApi circumvented Google’s latest cybersecurity innovation, SearchGuard™, a multi-billion dollar firewall that uses cutting-edge AI to detect bots, unless they work for Google Bard, Gemini, or Larry Page’s home aquarium startup.
Google claims that SerpApi’s system masquerades as human traffic by generating “fake browsers with diverse IP addresses,” a process shockingly similar to how your uncle accidentally trained a chatbot using WebMD and conspiracy forums.
Reddit Also Mad, But Not Mad Enough to Delete Their API
Adding insult to scraped injury, Reddit—whose own front page is 97% recycled memes and user-generated suffering—also filed suit against SerpApi and others for allegedly supplying their data to the AI company Perplexity. “It’s one thing when OpenAI consumes your every word and turns it into a TED Talk. But SerpApi? That’s scraping below the belt,” one Reddit admin whispered between mod meetings.
While the lawsuit doesn’t directly name Perplexity, legal experts say the “vibes are extremely directed.”
Google’s Vision for the Future: Only Google Gets to Do the Evil
In a statement to The Verge, Google explained that scraping is technically fine when done by very rich companies who hold data hostage behind ads, AMP pages, and aggressive cookie banners.
“We pay for licenses,” said a Google attorney, “and those licenses give us the exclusive right to pretend we respect copyright.”
Google is seeking an injunction to stop SerpApi from doing things Google already did first, better, and with way more lawyers. They’re also asking the court to destroy any technology involved in scraping—except the 12,000 copies of it in Google’s own server rooms, obviously.
Meanwhile, at SerpApi HQ
Sources report that SerpApi engineers, upon hearing the news, immediately began disguising their traffic as Bing in hopes that Google would simply ignore it.
“Honestly, if we just say we’re a Microsoft crawler, they’ll probably let us right in,” one developer said while loading up a botnet disguised as a Chrome extension called “Coupon Fairy.”
As of press time, Google was also rumored to be suing itself after one of its AI agents accidentally scraped Google Search to train another Google AI on how to scrape better. Legal scholars warn that this recursive lawsuit could destroy the fabric of reality—or at least delay Gmail updates another six months.