Google has escalated its battle against large-scale data scraping by filing a lawsuit against SerpApi, a Texas-based company it accuses of systematically siphoning content from its search results using massive volumes of fake queries, in what the tech giant describes as industrial-scale theft of copyrighted material.

The lawsuit, filed on Friday in federal court in California, alleges that SerpApi generated hundreds of millions of automated Google search requests to bypass Google’s technical safeguards, extract data embedded in search results, and then resell that information to third parties. Google argues that the practice allows SerpApi and its customers to “take it for free at an astonishing scale,” undermining both content creators and Google’s own contractual obligations to partners.

Google’s general counsel, Halimah DeLaine Prado, said the company had little choice but to resort to legal action after other measures failed.

“We devote significant resources to fighting this abuse and protecting websites’ content in our results,” she said in a statement. “When our technical security protections are circumvented in such a brazen way, as a last resort we take legal action to stop this behavior.”

At the heart of the dispute is the growing value of search data in the age of artificial intelligence. Google said its search results often include licensed and copyrighted material from third parties across products such as Knowledge Panels, Google Maps, and Google Shopping. These results, described in the complaint as “high-quality, content-rich,” are precisely what make Google a prime target for scrapers seeking structured data that can be repurposed for analytics, resale, or AI-related applications.

SerpApi did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the lawsuit. Google is seeking unspecified monetary damages as well as a court order to block SerpApi from continuing its scraping activities.

The case adds Google to a growing list of platforms pushing back against companies accused of harvesting online content without permission, a conflict that has intensified alongside the rapid expansion of generative AI. In October, Reddit filed a lawsuit against SerpApi and other scraping firms, alleging that its content was being taken to help train Perplexity’s AI-powered search engine. While Perplexity is not named in Google’s complaint, the overlap highlights how search data and user-generated content have become critical inputs in the AI ecosystem.

A Reddit spokesperson welcomed Google’s move, saying the company was “encouraged” by the lawsuit.

“When bad actors scrape content without permission or guardrails, they are turning the openness of the Internet against itself,” the spokesperson said.

For Google, the lawsuit also reflects broader strategic and legal pressures. The company sits at the center of the global information economy, aggregating and organizing vast amounts of data from across the web, often under complex licensing arrangements. Large-scale scraping threatens not only its infrastructure and revenue models, but also its relationships with publishers, map providers, and retailers whose content appears in search results under specific terms.

More broadly, the case underscores how the AI boom is reshaping old debates about web scraping, fair use, and data ownership. What was once a niche technical practice has become a high-stakes commercial activity, with companies racing to secure training data and real-time information at scale. Courts are increasingly being asked to draw lines between legitimate access, competitive intelligence, and outright misappropriation.

The lawsuit is titled Google LLC v. SerpApi LLC, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California under case number 5:25-cv-10826. Its outcome could help set new boundaries for how far third-party firms can go in extracting value from search engines — and may shape how data flows across the internet as AI systems continue to proliferate.

On Friday, Delaware’s highest court overturned a 2024 ruling by the Court of Chancery that had voided Musk’s $56 billion, milestone-based pay plan, calling the lower court’s decision to rescind the package an excessively harsh remedy.

The justices said Tesla was never given a proper opportunity to demonstrate what a fair level of compensation for Musk might be, and awarded only $1 in nominal damages to the shareholder who brought the suit.

The decision effectively ends the long-running Tornetta v. Musk case and restores what remains the largest CEO pay package in corporate history. But its implications extend well beyond settling an old dispute.

At the heart of the ruling is a clear signal from the Delaware Supreme Court that even where flaws exist in a board’s process, courts should be cautious about unwinding compensation agreements that have already been approved by shareholders and executed over time. That principle is now being closely watched in light of Tesla’s latest and far more controversial move: a new compensation framework presented to Musk in 2025 that could, under optimistic scenarios, be worth around $1 trillion.

Background: the 2018 deal and the legal fight

Musk’s original 2018 package was revolutionary. He agreed to take no salary or cash bonus, instead tying his pay entirely to Tesla’s performance across 12 tranches of stock options. Each tranche was linked to aggressive targets for market capitalization, revenue, and profitability. If Tesla failed, Musk earned nothing. If it succeeded, shareholders would benefit alongside him.

Tesla’s explosive growth meant the plan was fully vested, turning the package into a symbol of Silicon Valley excess — and a magnet for legal scrutiny.

Shareholder Richard Tornetta sued, accusing Musk and Tesla’s board of breaching fiduciary duties by approving the deal through what he described as a conflicted and opaque process. In January 2024, Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick sided with Tornetta, ruling that Musk “controlled Tesla,” that the board was insufficiently independent, and that shareholders were not given all material information before voting. She ordered the pay package rescinded outright.

That ruling triggered a fierce backlash. Musk publicly attacked the decision, moved Tesla’s incorporation out of Delaware, and encouraged other companies to follow. Tesla also attempted to ratify the 2018 package through a second shareholder vote in 2024, while appealing the ruling.

The Supreme Court’s reversal

In overturning the Chancery Court, the Delaware Supreme Court did not fully vindicate Tesla’s process, but it rejected rescission as an appropriate solution. The justices said the lower court failed to consider alternative remedies and denied Tesla the chance to argue what compensation would be reasonable, given Musk’s role and Tesla’s performance.

By restoring the pay package, the court reinforced the idea that shareholder-approved compensation, especially when tied to extraordinary corporate outcomes, should not be easily undone after the fact.

A precedent for the $1 trillion question

That reasoning is now central to the debate around Tesla’s newest compensation proposal for Musk.

Earlier this year, Tesla board unveiled a new long-term incentive framework that would again rely heavily on equity awards tied to ambitious valuation and operational milestones. While the exact payout would depend on Tesla’s future performance, analysts estimate that if the company meets its most aggressive targets, the package could ultimately be worth close to $1 trillion — a figure that has stunned even seasoned observers of executive pay.

Critics have already warned that the proposal risks repeating the governance concerns raised in the 2018 case, particularly around board independence and Musk’s outsized influence. Supporters counter that Musk remains inseparable from Tesla’s value proposition and that shareholders should be free to reward him accordingly if he delivers exceptional results.

The Delaware Supreme Court’s ruling strengthens Tesla’s hand. By making clear that rescinding a shareholder-approved pay deal is an extraordinary step, the court has raised the legal threshold for successfully challenging future Musk compensation packages. While any new plan could still face lawsuits, legal experts say plaintiffs may find it harder to persuade courts to nullify such agreements outright, especially if Tesla improves its disclosure and approval processes.

The decision also lands amid a broader rethinking of Delaware’s role in corporate America. Tesla’s legal battle coincided with legislative changes to Delaware corporate law earlier this year, changes that were supported by firms representing major companies and aimed at reducing litigation risk for boards and executives.