The Hungarian government’s Hungarian Competition Authority (Gazdasági Versenyhivatal, GVH) has ended its competition procedure investigation into Alphabet Inc subsidiary Google Ireland Limited, the office shared with the Hungarian state news agency MTI on Tuesday, 2 June.
According to their statement, there was not enough evidence to conclusively prove that laws were violated.
Alphabet Inc is an American tech giant currently valued at around $4.5 trillion. Its subsidiary in Ireland, which was under GVH investigation, is in charge of its European operations.
The investigation was launched in the fall of 2025 after the GVH raised concerns about Google’s handling of advertisements on its Google Ads platform. Regulators suspected that phishing websites impersonating MBH Bank had appeared among paid search results, potentially exposing users to fraud.
During the procedure, the authority requested extensive information from Google Ireland, and also contacted the American tech giant’s Hungarian subsidiary and MBH Bank as part of the investigation. According to GVH, Google did take steps to remove the fraudulent advertisements and suspend the advertising accounts involved once the phishing activity was detected.
However, investigators were unable to fully reconstruct the network of domains and advertising accounts used in the scheme or determine exactly how and when they had been managed.
As a result, the available evidence did not allow the authority to conclusively assess whether Google’s monitoring and control systems had been adequate to prevent or address the violations under their investigation. GVH said that no further procedural measures were expected to produce any meaningful results and therefore decided to close the case without finding an infringement.
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