Alphabet’s Google was hit with a lawsuit on Thursday by Danish online job search rival Jobindex, a year after the latter complained to EU antitrust regulators that the U.S. tech giant unfairly favored its own job search service. The Danish Media Association sued Google in a Danish court on behalf of Jobindex, accusing Google of copyright infringement.
Jobindex accused Google of copying job advertisements on its own service without permission and demanded damages for copyright infringement. It is the first action brought by a Danish court under new EU copyright rules that come into effect in 2021 on the liability of platforms for content uploaded to their services.
“We are willing to compete with Google, but only on an equal footing, and not for Google to provide Jobs with products that are not theirs,” Jobindex CEO Kaare Danielsen said in a statement.
Mads Brandstrup, chief executive of the Danish Media Association, has urged Danish authorities to enforce copyright rules against big tech companies.
A Google spokesman said that Jobindex has not used Google’s tools to flag copyright-infringing content.
“The Jobs feature in Google Search is designed to make job searching as easy as possible, make it easier for people to find relevant job results faster, and increase traffic and job matching from participating job providers,” she said.
“Any job provider, big or small, can participate. No one will be included in the job features in Search unless they want to, and we respect any decision not to participate in these features.”
EU antitrust regulators have yet to act on Jobindex’s complaint.
© Thomson Reuters 2023
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