Danish online job-search website Jobindex has filed a lawsuit against Alphabet’s Google. The lawsuit comes a year after Jobindex complained to EU antitrust regulators that the US tech giant unfairly favoured its own job-search service. The Danish Media Association on behalf of Jobindex sued Google at a Danish court alleging copyright violations. This is the first lawsuit in the Danish courts under new EU copyright rules regarding platforms’ liability for content uploaded to their services that came into force in 2021.
What the lawsuit claims
In the lawsuit, Jobindex accuses Google of copying job ads to its own service without permission and wants compensation and damages for copyright violations.
“We’re willing to compete with Google, but it must be on equal terms, not with Google for Jobs having products on its shelves that aren’t theirs,” Jobindex Chief Executive Kaare Danielsen said in a statement.
Danish Media Association CEO Mads Brandstrup has urged Danish authorities to implement the copyright rules against Big Tech.
What Google said
Responding to the lawsuit, Google said that Jobindex has not used Google’s tools for flagging copyright infringing content. “The Jobs function in Google Search was created to make job search as simple as possible, making it easier for people to find relevant job results more quickly and increasing traffic and job matches for participating job providers,” the spokesperson said.
“Any job provider – big or small – can take part. No one is included in the Jobs function in Search unless they want to be – and we respect any decision not to participate in these features.”
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