By Olivier de Segonzac
Publication Date: 2026-01-19 15:40:00
We fully decrypted Google’s SearchGuard anti-bot system, the technology at the center of its recent lawsuit against SerpAPI.
After fully deobfuscating the JavaScript code, we now have an unprecedented look at how Google distinguishes human visitors from automated scrapers in real time.
What happened. Google filed a lawsuit on Dec. 19 against Texas-based SerpAPI LLC, alleging the company circumvented SearchGuard to scrape copyrighted content from Google Search results at a scale of “hundreds of millions” of queries daily. Rather than targeting terms-of-service violations, Google built its case on DMCA Section 1201 – the anti-circumvention provision of copyright law.
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The complaint…
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