Here we go again: EU regulator investigates Google for Jobs antitrust complaint from Danish rival Jobindex
Another day, another European crack down on Big Tech, after the Danish online job-search site Jobindex told regulators that Google unfairly favoured its own service, Google for Jobs.
The antitrust complaint comes against a busy backdrop of scrutiny for Silicon Valley titans, and EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager’s ambitions for greater fairness across the bloc.
Alphabet-owned Google alone has been fined more than 8 billion euros by Vestager.
The European Commission said on Monday it would assess the complaint against standard procedures.
Discussing the case, a Google spokesperson told news agency Reuters: “Any jobs provider, big or small, is able to take part and companies are seeing increased traffic and job matches as a result of this feature”.
Jobindex Founder and CEO Kaare Danielsen told the agency that since Google for Jobs entered the Danish market, it has lost 30 per cent of its search traffic to Google’s service.
He accused Google’s service of hiding some of the most relevant roles for job seekers.
Danielsen has called for the commission to fine Google and ensure future compliance for anti-competitive action.
Back in May, the UK’s competition watchdog launched a probe into whether Google has behaved illegally by limiting competition in the digital advertising tech market.
The Competition and Market Authority (CMA) unveiled a second investigation into the tech giant, after scrutinising an agreement between Google and Meta.
It will look at demand-side platforms, which allow advertisers and media agencies to buy publishers’ advertising inventory from many sources, in addition to ad exchanges, which automate the sale of these inventories.