After a Danish online competitor complained to EU regulators that the Alphabet business had unjustly favoured its own job search engine, Google was slammed with an antitrust lawsuit on Monday.
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.
Requests for comment made outside of business hours were not immediately answered by Google or the European Commission.
Vestager recently penalised Google more than 8 billion euros ($8.4 billion) for a number of anti-competitive actions, and the company has previously claimed that this prompted it to make improvements in Europe.
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, they had lost market share.
Although candidates must travel elsewhere to apply, Google's service links to posts that have been collected from several employers, allowing candidates to sort, save, and receive notifications about jobs. 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, claimed that Google had used anticompetitive tactics to sway the Danish market, which had previously been extremely 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 told Reuters 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 own 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 practises, 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 own 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.