June 28, 2022
Google is facing an antitrust complaint from Danish online job-search rival Jobindex, which accused Google of antitrust actions, including allegations that it unfairly favored its own job-search service.
Jobindex claimed that Google had used anti-competitive means to distort a previously highly competitive Danish market towards itself. Jobindex founder and CEO Kaare Danielson noted that the company had built up the largest job database in Denmark until Google for Jobs entered the market in 2021.
“Nevertheless, in the short time following the introduction of Google for Jobs in Denmark, Jobindex lost 20% of search traffic to Google’s inferior service. By putting its own inferior service at the top of results pages, Google in effect hides some of the most relevant job offerings from job seekers. Recruiters, in turn, may no longer reach all job seekers unless they use Google’s job service. This does not just stifle competition amongst recruitment services, but directly impairs labor markets, which are central to any economy,” Danielson said.
Danielson urged the European Commission to order Google to put an end to the alleged anti-competitive practices, impose fines on the company and impose periodic payments to ensure compliance.
The sources for this piece include an article in Reuters.
