2 February 2023, Budapest - The Hungarian Competition Authority (GVH) has closed its investigation against the operators of ingatlan.com, because the alleged infringement was not proven when the competition authority initiated the competition supervision proceedings.
In February 2022, the national competition authority launched proceedings against Ingatlan.com Zrt., the operator of one of the largest Hungarian real estate advertising portals, to investigate the portal's ad targeting system. The private advertisers of the system were advanced in the order of display on the website on the basis of a special credit system, and the GVH's preliminary investigation suggested that the operator was concealing the essential features of this from consumers.
The detailed procedure found that the information in question, which was missing at the opening of the case, – i.e. the operational details of the credit system for advancement– was not clearly relevant for consumer decision-making. The private advertisers of the portal were therefore not harmed, as they received sufficient information from other sources to make their business decisions on the ranking of their advertisements. The Competition Council of the Authority has therefore decided to close the procedure.
GVH Public Service and International Section
Further information:
Bálint Horváth, Head of Communication +36 20 238 6939
Katalin Gondolovics, Spokesperson +36 30 603 1170