MAGYAR TARTALOMSZOLGÁLTATÓK EGYESÜLETE AND INDEX.HU ZRT v. HUNGARY JUDGMENT 3 “Is this not that Benkő-Sándor-sort-of sly, rubbish, mug company (“benkősándoros sunyi szemét lehúzó cég”) again? I ran into it two years ago, since then they have kept sending me emails about my overdue debts and this and that. I am above 100,000 [Hungarian forints] now. I have not paid and I am not going to. That’s it.” 13. On 8 February 2010 the Internet portal www.vg.hu, operated by Zöld Újság Zrt, reproduced the opinion word by word under the title “Another mug scandal”. 14. The consumer protection column of Index also wrote about the opinion under the title “Content providers condemn [one of the incriminated property websites]”, publishing the full text of the opinion. One of the user comments posted on Index by a reader acting under a pseudonym read as follows: “People like this should go and shit a hedgehog and spend all their money on their mothers’ tombs until they drop dead.” (“Azért az ilyenek szarjanak sünt és költsék az összes bevételüket anyjuk sírjára, amíg meg nem dögölnek.”) 15. On 17 February 2010 the company operating the websites concerned brought a civil action before the Budapest Regional Court against the applicants and Zöld Újság Zrt. The plaintiff claimed that the opinion, whose content was false and offensive, and the subsequent comments had infringed its right to good reputation. Once learning of the impending court action, the applicants removed the impugned comments at once. 16. In their counterclaims before the Regional Court, the applicants argued that they, as intermediary publishers under Act no. CVIII of 2001, were not liable for the user comments. They noted that the business practice of the plaintiff, affecting wide ranges of consumers, attracted numerous complaints to the consumer protection organs and prompted several procedures against the company. 17. On 31 March 2011 the Regional Court partially sustained the claim, holding that the plaintiff’s right to good reputation had been infringed. As a preliminary remark, the court observed that consumer protection bodies had instituted various proceedings against the plaintiff company, since it had not informed its clients adequately about its business policies. The Court found that the comments (see paragraphs 12 and 14 above) were offensive, insulting and humiliating and went beyond the acceptable limits of freedom of expression. The court rejected the applicants’ argument that they were only intermediaries and their sole obligation was to remove certain contents, in case of a complaint. It found that the comments constituted edited content, fell in the same category as readers’ letters and the respondents were liable for enabling their publication, notwithstanding the fact that later on they had removed them. As regards the content of the opinion as such, the court found that it had contributed to an on-going social and professional debate on the