Hungarian Competition Authority Clears Google In Lyric Card Investigation

The Hungarian Competition Authority (HCA) has announced the closure of its competition supervision proceeding against Google, initially launched in June 2021. The investigation examined whether the company abused its dominant market position through its lyric card service, which displays song lyrics directly within search results. The key question was whether this feature unfairly promoted Google's own service over competitors, potentially distorting market competition.

Following an in-depth analysis, the HCA found no evidence of antitrust violations. The investigation assessed the impact of the lyric card's introduction and operation, concluding that Google's service was designed to provide accurate answers efficiently while reducing users' search time. The HCA did not establish a causal link between the introduction of the lyric card and a decline in traffic to competing websites. On the contrary, some competitors actually experienced increased revenue and