SerpApi also disputes whether bypassing SearchGuard counts as circumvention under the DMCA.<\/p>
Google alleged in December that SerpApi solved JavaScript challenges, used rotating IP addresses, and mimicked human browser behavior to get past SearchGuard.<\/p>
Khaleghy wrote that the DMCA defines \u201cto circumvent a technological measure,\u201d in part, as \u201cto descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair a technological measure,\u201d and argued SerpApi does none of those things.<\/p>
\u201cWe access publicly visible web pages, the same ones accessible to any browser. We do not break encryption. We do not disable authentication systems.\u201d<\/p> <\/blockquote>
The motion states Google \u201cdoes not allege unscrambling or decryption of any work, or the impairment, deactivation, or removal of any access system.\u201d SerpApi calls SearchGuard a bot-management tool, not a copyright access control.<\/p>
Why This Matters<\/h2>
The outcome could reach beyond SerpApi. Google\u2019s DMCA theory, if accepted, would let any platform displaying licensed third-party content use the statute to block automated access to publicly visible pages.<\/p>
When we covered Google\u2019s original filing in December, I noted the central question was whether SearchGuard qualifies as a DMCA-protected access control. SerpApi\u2019s motion now adds a layer underneath that. Even if SearchGuard qualifies, SerpApi argues Google isn\u2019t the right party to enforce it.<\/p>
In a separate case decided on December 15, 2025, U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein dismissed Ziff Davis\u2019s DMCA Section 1201(a) anti-circumvention claim tied to robots.txt against OpenAI, holding Ziff Davis failed to plausibly allege that robots.txt is a technological measure that effectively controls access, or that OpenAI circumvented it.<\/p>
Google\u2019s SearchGuard is more technically complex than a robots.txt directive, but both cases test whether the DMCA can be used to restrict automated access to publicly available content.<\/p>
Looking Ahead<\/h2>
The hearing on SerpApi\u2019s motion is scheduled for May 19, 2026. Google will file its opposition before then.<\/p>
SerpApi also filed a motion to dismiss in a separate lawsuit brought by Reddit in October, which named SerpApi alongside Perplexity, Oxylabs, and AWMProxy. Both cases raise questions about using DMCA anti-circumvention claims to challenge bot evasion and automated access to pages that are viewable in a normal browser.<\/p>
Featured Image: CrizzyStudio<\/span><\/span>\/Shutterstock<\/em><\/p> <\/div> News,Tools#SerpApi #Challenges #Googles #Sue #SERP #Scraping #sejournal #MattGSouthern1772101413<\/p> ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SerpApi filed a motion to dismiss Google\u2019s federal lawsuit, two months after Google sued the company under the DMCA for allegedly bypassing its SearchGuard anti-scraping system. The filing goes beyond disputing the technical allegations. SerpApi is challenging whether Google has the legal right to bring the case at all. The Standing Question SerpApi\u2019s core argument […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3894,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[1979,179,90,13153,80,12344,4088,13216],"class_list":["post-3893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-accessibility","tag-challenges","tag-googles","tag-mattgsouthern","tag-scraping","tag-sejournal","tag-serp","tag-serpapi","tag-sue"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3893\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}