The complaint could reinvigorate EU
antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager's scrutiny of the service, Google for Jobs.
Vestager said three years ago she was looking into the issue, but has yet to
take any action.
The European Commission said it would
assess the complaint according to the standard procedures. Jobindex's action
comes four years after German media group Axel Springer's jobs portal Stepstone
filed a similar complaint against Google.
Google, which has been fined more than 8
billion euros ($8.4 billion) by Vestager in recent years for various
anti-competitive practices, says it partners with job providers to direct
people to websites with job listings relevant to them.
"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," a Google spokesperson said.
Launched in Europe in 2018, Google for Jobs
triggered criticism from 23 online job-search websites in 2019. They said they
had lost market share after the online search giant had allegedly used its
market power to push its new service.
Google's service links to postings
aggregated from many employers, allowing candidates to filter, save and get
alerts about openings, though they must go elsewhere to apply. Google places a
large widget for the tool at the top of results for ordinary web searches.
Jobindex, one of the 23 critics three years
ago, said Google had skewed what had been a highly competitive Danish market
towards itself via anticompetitive means.
Founder and CEO Kaare Danielsen said
Jobindex had built up the largest jobs database in Denmark by the time Google
for Jobs entered the local market last year.
"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," Danielsen told Reuters.
"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," he said.
"This does not just stifle competition
amongst recruitment services but directly impairs labour markets, which are
central to any economy," Danielsen said, urging the Commission to order
Google to stop the alleged anti-competitive practices, fine the company and
impose periodic payments to ensure compliance.
Jobindex said it had seen examples of
free-riding, with some of its own job ads copied without its permission and
marketed through Google for Jobs on behalf of Jobindex's business partners. It
also cited privacy risks to job applicants and its clients.