In december 2025, Google filed a lawsuit against SerpApi in California federal court, alleging violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and breach of contract. This legal action represents a decisive shift from technical countermeasures to direct legal enforcement against SERP scraping services.For teams currently using SerpApi or evaluating alternatives, the lawsuit transforms architectural compliance from a theoretical concern into an immediate operational risk.

The Google v. SerpApi Lawsuit: Key Facts

According to Google's official announcement, the lawsuit alleges that SerpApi:

• Violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act through unauthorized access

• Breached Google's Terms of Service through automated scraping

• Circumvented technical protections designed to prevent scraping

• Generated over 11 billion queries against Google's systems

Google's statement explicitly noted that SerpApi "scrapes Google Search results pages through automated means" and "violates our Terms of Service."

Why the Lawsuit Changes the Risk Calculation

Prior to the lawsuit, SERP scraping occupied a legal gray area that most teams managed through operational trade-offs. The technical challenges - CAPTCHAs, parsing failures, proxy costs - were understood and budgeted for. Legal risk was theoretical. The December 2024 lawsuit removes that ambiguity. If Google prevails against SerpApi, the precedent makes every SERP scraping service demonstrably vulnerable to Computer Fraud and Abuse Act claims. Legal departments that previously tolerated scraping as a technical necessity now face documented enforcement.

The implications extend beyond direct litigation. Enterprise compliance frameworks (e.g., SOC 2 audits, ISO 27001 certifications) increasingly scrutinize whether third-party services violate platforms' Terms of Service. Cyber liability insurance policies often exclude coverage for "knowing violations" of computer access restrictions, and a lawsuit establishing SERP scraping as CFAA territory potentially voids coverage.

For production systems, the question has shifted from "will scraping break?" to "does using a scraping service create legal exposure our contracts, compliance frameworks, or insurance won't tolerate?"

SerpApi Alternatives: Architecture Comparison (more details on the top services here)

Linkup as a SerpApi Replacement

Linkup operates through direct web crawling rather than scraping search engines. Technical differentiators:

Compliance Architecture:

• Respects robots.txt directives across all crawled domains

• Partners with content delivery networks (Cloudflare) [link]

• Integrates with content licensing platforms (Tollbit) [link]

• Does not violate Google Terms of Service

Operational Advantages:

• Single API endpoint vs. multiple scraping calls 

• No proxy infrastructure required

• Consistent response format (no HTML parsing)

More details in how Linkup compare to a SERP solution requiring several end points to build a similar systems in our previous blog post : Architecture: From 6 Fragile Calls to 1 Reliable Endpoint.

Frequently Asked Questions

What did Google's lawsuit against SerpApi allege?

Google filed a lawsuit in December 2024 alleging that SerpApi violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and breached Google's Terms of Service by scraping search results through automated means. Google stated that SerpApi generated over 11 billion scraping queries against their systems while circumventing technical protections. The lawsuit represents Google's shift from technical countermeasures to direct legal enforcement.

Does Linkup scrape websites like SerpApi scrapes Google?

Linkup crawls the web, meaning we inspect websites and embed their content into our database when relevant. However, we strictly respect standard protocols like robots.txt and do not crawl websites that explicitly prohibit it. 

Does Linkup circumvent website protections?

No. Our technology is not designed to bypass or circumvent any protections against scraping. We respect robots.txt directives, rate limits, and website owner preferences. 

Does Linkup compensate content creators?

Linkup partners with platforms like Tollbit (content licencing) and content delivery networks like Cloudflare to enable compensation mechanisms for rightsholders. These partnerships ensure that website owners can be remunerated when their content appears in search results.

Is Linkup a direct replacement for SerpApi?

Yes, for most use cases. Linkup provides similar JSON output and covers the same functionality; retrieving current web information programmatically. The key difference is architectural: Linkup crawls the web directly rather than scraping Google, which eliminates legal risk and improves reliability. Migration typically requires only endpoint and authentication changes.

What's the difference between a SERP API and a Web Search API?

SERP APIs scrape search engine result pages (specifically Google's interface), extracting rankings and structured data. Web Search APIs crawl the web independently and return relevant content directly.

Could I face legal risk for using SerpApi?

Google's lawsuit targets SerpApi directly, not its users. However, using services that violate third-party Terms of Service creates several downstream risks: compliance framework failures (SOC 2, ISO 27001), contract issues if your customers prohibit ToS violations, and potential insurance coverage gaps. Many enterprises are migrating away from SERP scraping specifically to avoid these compliance concerns.

How much does Linkup cost compared to SerpApi?

Linkup pricing starts at $0.005 per query versus SerpApi's $0.015-0.03 per query. Beyond per-query costs, Linkup eliminates hidden expenses: proxy services, CAPTCHA solving, maintenance engineering, and downtime costs. Total cost of ownership is typically 60-70% lower.