GVH: another popular influencer cooperated with the authority

According to the information, the GVH found that social media content producer Bence Halmi promoted the services of his own business without advertising designation. The influencer, who has about 422 thousand followers on TikTok and more than 37 thousand followers on Instagram, and his company cooperated with the GVH during the procedure, acknowledged the violation and waived their right to legal remedy, therefore the GVH Competition Council reduced the fine imposed to 1.3 million forints.

It was recalled that the Hungarian Competition Authority initiated competition supervision procedures against six domestic influencers and several advertising companies in the spring of 2024. The GVH, in the framework of an online inspection (so-called sweep) conducted to review the advertising practices of domestic content producers, detected numerous shortcomings in the marketing activities of opinion leaders.

The announcement pointed out that only 20 percent of influencers always comply with the rules on indicating the nature of advertising, the majority, 54 percent, usually indicate the fact of promotional content, but not always, while about a quarter of opinion leaders never or only very rarely publish any information.

They mentioned that the investigation was first concluded in the case of Roland Kása, who operates the “Rolix” YouTube channel. Now the GVH has concluded competition supervision proceedings against Bence Halmi and several companies.