After a Danish online competitor complained to EU regulators that the Alphabet business had unjustly favoured its job search engine, Google was slammed with an antitrust lawsuit.
After a Danish online competitor complained to EU regulators that the Alphabet business had unjustly favoured its job search engine, Google was slammed with an antitrust lawsuit.
Three years after first coming under her inspection, EU antitrust watchdog Margrethe Vestager's investigation of the programme, Google for Jobs, may be sped up by the complaint. Since that time, the EU has not taken any particular action in the online job-search industry.
The European Commission and Google did not react promptly to demands for comment delivered after hours.
Google has previously stated that it made improvements in Europe in response to complaints from online job-search competitors. Google has been fined more than 8 billion euros ($8.4 billion) by Vestager in recent years for numerous anti-competitive actions.
23 online job-search websites criticised Google for Jobs after it was introduced in Europe in 2018. They said that as a result of the internet search engine allegedly using its market dominance to promote its new service, it had lost market share.
Google's service links to job posts collected from many firms, allowing candidates to browse, save, and receive notifications about opportunities, but they must apply elsewhere. For standard online searches, Google displays a sizable widget for the tool at the top of the results.
Three years ago, one of the 23 critics, Jobindex, said that Google had used anti-competitive tactics to tilt the Danish market, which had previously been quite competitive, in its favour.
By the time Google for Employment arrived on the scene in the region last year, according to Jobindex founder and CEO Kaare Danielsen, his business had amassed the largest jobs database in Denmark.
However, Danielsen said that Jobindex lost 20% of search traffic to Google's subpar service in the short period after the launch of Google for Jobs in Denmark.
"Google effectively suppresses some of the most pertinent job listings from job searchers by placing its subpar service at the top of results pages. If recruiters don't use Google's employment service, they may not be able to contact all job seekers "explained he.
Danielsen urged the Commission to order Google to stop the allegedly anti-competitive practices, impose a fine on the company, and require periodic payments to ensure compliance. "This does not just stifle competition among recruitment services but directly impairs labour markets, which are central to any economy," Danielsen said.
Jobindex claimed to have observed instances of free-riding when some of its job postings were reproduced without its consent and promoted by Jobindex's business partners through Google for Jobs. It also mentioned privacy dangers to clients and job seekers.
