// internet policy

Source: Search Engine Journal

Google's loss to SerpApi reveals that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act protects business models, not content. The court found SearchGuard's real purpose was defending ad revenue, not copyrights, gutting the legal framework tech companies typically lean on against competitors and scrapers. Startups can now legally extract and resell Google's data without the legal threat that previously made such ventures too risky. Publishers and platforms face a choice between open data norms and proprietary moats. Data extraction becomes a standard competitive tactic that weakens search's ability to monetize, or companies must build new technical and legal defenses outside copyright, potentially fragmenting what remains of the open web.