Google hit with new EU antitrust complaint

STORY: Google was hit with a new antitrust complaint on Monday (June 27), filed to EU regulators by a Danish online job-search rival.

Jobindex alleges the Alphabet unit has used its market power to favour its own job search service.

Google for Jobs launched in Europe in 2018 and triggered criticism from 23 online job-search websites, including Jobindex, the following year.

The latest complaint could accelerate EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager's scrutiny of Google For Jobs three years after it first came under her microscope.

The European Commission and Google did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Vestager has fined Google more than $8.4 billion in recent years for various anti-competitive practices. Google has previously said it made changes in Europe after complaints from online job-search rivals.

Jobindex founder and CEO Kaare Danielsen said his company had built up the largest jobs database in Denmark by the time Google for Jobs entered the local market last year. But he said it soon lost 20% of search traffic to Google.

He said Google wasn't just stifling competition, but also harming labor markets.

Jobindex said it had seen examples of free-riding, with some of its own job ads copied without its permission.