Google receives copyright lawsuit from Danish online job search competitor Jobindex: details
Alphabet’s Google was faced with a lawsuit from Danish online job search competitor Jobindex on Thursday, a year after it complained to EU antitrust authorities that the US tech giant was unfairly favoring its own job search service. The Danish Media Association sued Google on behalf of Jobindex in a Danish court for copyright infringement.
Jobindex accuses Google of illegally copying job advertisements into its own service and demands compensation and damages for copyright infringement. This is the first lawsuit before Danish courts under the new EU copyright rules regarding platforms’ liability for content uploaded to their services, which came into force in 2021.
“We’re ready to compete with Google, but it has to be on an equal footing, and not with Google for Jobs having products on its shelves that don’t belong to them,” Jobindex chief executive Kaare Danielsen said in a statement.
Mads Brandstrup, CEO of the Danish Media Association, called on the Danish authorities to implement copyright regulations against Big Tech.
Jobindex did not use Google’s tools to flag copyright-infringing content, a Google spokesman said.
“The Jobs feature on Google Search was designed to make job searches as easy as possible, make it easier for people to find relevant job results faster, and increase traffic and job matches for participating job sites,” she said.
“Any job provider – large or small – can participate. No one is included in the Jobs feature in search unless they choose to be – and we respect any decision not to participate in those features.”
The EU antitrust authority has not yet responded to Jobindex’s complaint.
© Thomson Reuters 2023
