Google’s job search capabilities have grown and improved since they were launched last year, to offer an excellent tool to both employers and job hunters. The Google job tool is now a matter of contention in the EU, however, where yesterday, it became apparent that 23 job search websites based in Europe have filed a complaint to the European Union competition commissioner complaining of anti-competitive behavior relating to the specialized Google tool. So, what does all this mean then?
23 specialized job sites in Europe have called on the EU to temporarily ban Google Jobs while the competition commissioner investigates potentially unfair practices
As you’d imagine, the Google job search tool is pretty massive. It takes job posts from many different employers, gives job hunters the chance to filter their search results, save their preferred positions, and even receive job alerts about new openings that match their set criteria.
In this way, the tool stands toe-to-toe with some of the job search industry leaders like Indeed and LinkedIn. The big difference between the Google tool and LinkedIn, however, is that candidates can’t apply for jobs on the Google tool, they have to go elsewhere to do that.
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Read Now ►The problem, according to the 20+ European companies, which could see Google facing even more anti-trust proceedings is that Google is unfairly positioning its jobs tool.
For two years now Google has been placing a large widget at the top of search results for simple search queries like “bar jobs”, “office jobs”, and any other type of job-related search query you can think of. According to the complainants, this is illegal as it means that Google hasn’t had to invest into the traditional marketing techniques that they have had to in order to capture this prized position at the top of Google search results.
According to the Reuters report, which exposed the complaint, the current EU competition commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, has been looking into the Google job tool for quite some time.
The report also says, however, that she is due to leave office on October 31 and that this could be why the complainants have decided to sign their letter and deliver it publicly. Although Vestager is leaving office it is believed she has compiled a dossier on the case that she will pass to her successor.
Not all bad
Although it is easy to see why a company would get mad at Google showing its own job search results in positions usually reserved for ads, not all companies are mad about the Google job search widget. Google’s job policy allows jobs from any website that follows its set guidelines on the structure of individual job postings.
Job sites like Monster have seen their traffic increase significantly via the Google widget because they’ve worked hard to ensure that employers posting on their websites follow the strict guidelines.
Smaller websites claim to not have the resources to be able to pursue individual postings that don’t match Google’s guidelines, however, and that it is hurting their traffic. One such company is Zippia in California, but other larger companies add to that worry the fact Google is forcing the competition to hand over information that would allow the search giant to cut them out of the process entirely. This claim is also mirrored by the 23 companies that have just put their letter into the EU.
So, what will happen next?
As of now, we don’t know. It would be a very big move for the current EU commissioner to suspend the Google job search tool pending an investigation, considering she is due to leave office at the end of October. She will hand her dossier on Google job search to her successor when she goes, however, and after that, we’ll have to wait and see.
Google is already under intense scrutiny for monopolistic behavior, however, and after paying out a whopping $2.7 billion EU fine in 2017 for manipulating search results and also facing EU competition proceedings relating to Android, the internet giant needs to be careful.
