This is one of those things I suspect should probably be made illegal, just like fake reviews are. There is no benefit to society for companies being allowed to

This is one of those things I suspect should probably be made illegal, just like fake reviews are. There is no benefit to society for companies being allowed to post fake job listings, and an awful lot of downsides to both jobseekers (wasted time and effort for a job they'll never get) and services hosting the jobs (makes their listings useless for users). And while I hear that sometimes it's for 'compliance' reasons (can't hire an internal candidate without listing the job publicly), there should be better laws there too. It's blatantly exploiting a loophole that just about everyone would say goes against the spirit of the law/guidelines and simply shouldn't be allowed. Either jobs can't be listed if a candidate has already been chosen internally, or that companies are required to show equal consideration to both internal and external candidates.