Indeed filed a lawsuit yesterday against competitor ZipRecruiter, alleging the company used an advertising and marketing campaign to “poach” Indeed’s employer customers by making misleading or false statements about a change to Indeed’s hosted job postings policy (Indeed, Inc. v. ZipRecruiter, Inc.).
According to Indeed, the company decided in mid-2024 to change its policy regarding free (“hosted”) job postings, effective Oct. 1. The change restricted double-posting of free jobs, meaning employers would no longer be able to have free posts both be indexed as free job posts — which can occur automatically through an employer’s applicant system or a data feed — and posted directly on Indeed for free. This change was meant to “avoid duplicate posts that confuse Indeed’s job seekers,” the company said.
Following this change, Indeed alleged ZipRecruiter emailed Indeed’s employer customers to inform them Indeed would be ending its free job posts and that all job posts would require a daily budget of at least $5 per post, among other claims.
ZipRecruiter workers also posted on LinkedIn about the policy.
“As of October 1st, 2024, Indeed will no longer support organic job postings,” Jordan Peterson, a senior manager at ZipRecruiter, wrote in a now-deleted post that was allegedly reposted by over a dozen ZipRecruiter employees. “This major shift will impact the visibility of your open roles and could increase your reliance on paid ads.”
ZipRecruiter pushed back on the lawsuit in a statement provided to HR Dive.
“We strongly disagree that competing with Indeed is a violation of Federal law,” a ZipRecruiter spokesperson said. “It is surprising they have taken this step rather than work to address the industry-wide confusion on the implications of their policy changes.”
In its own statement, Indeed reiterated to HR Dive that it continues to allow employer customers to post jobs for free. “For employers who already have job listings from external sources such as career sites on Indeed, any new jobs posted directly on Indeed won’t appear in search results unless sponsored,” the company said. “We want to correct the record about false claims that we are ending free job postings on Indeed.”
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, alleged ZipRecruiter violated the Lanham Act by making false or misleading statements that interfered with customer relationships and diminished the value of Indeed’s products and services. It also alleged ZipRecruiter employees created Indeed accounts and breached its terms of service, and that they engaged in tortious interference with Indeed’s contracted customers.
Indeed seeks declaratory and injunctive relief, including a judicial declaration that ZipRecruiter violated Indeed’s terms of service and does not have the right to use Indeed’s platform to solicit customers or “[make] false or misleading statements.”
Indeed bills itself as the top job site in the world, used by 350 million unique visitors and 3.5 million employers, according to internal data collected within the past year. The company has had a few rocky patches in 2024, however, opting to kill a relatively new pay-per-application model that created frustration among customers and undertaking layoffs in May following a global slow-down in hiring.