Can you talk me through the process of indexing the database for instant search or instant search capabilities, to the extent you have any knowledge about it? How does this play into the protection against crawling?

I think one aspect that gives them an edge relates to data protection. The way Scout24 continues to maintain an almost monopolistic position in the market, where people simply expect that if they want to find something, that is where they go. At least so far, other models have struggled to summarize or reproduce that breadth of information effectively. This is, of course, my personal view, but it makes it difficult for outside services—let’s say ChatGPT. You can already ask ChatGPT to pull listings from Scout; that is not the issue. The challenge is that these models are built to summarize extremely well. They are less effective at presenting long lists of distinct options, because they are designed to converge toward what users generally expect to hear. When the requirement is to maintain a comprehensive set of results and prioritize them appropriately, that becomes more difficult. In that sense, I think it gives Scout and other classifieds platforms a certain advantage.

To what extent can the portals themselves be disintermediated by start-ups that allow for direct plugin of the individual agents' and dealers' inventory?

The danger to classifieds is significant. There is a big difference between private listings and commercial listings, which are B2B2C. If an agent or car dealer lists their inventory on a classified, 99% of the time they are in dispute with the classified about pricing because most classifieds are always raising prices. Agents and dealers are not happy with classifieds. If something tells them they can keep everything on their website, structure it in a certain way, and be very visible so everyone can find them with their branded website getting quoted, I think they would be happy. There is no brand value on classifieds. Unlike a department store shop-in-shop where a big agent has their own branding, that doesn't really happen on classifieds. That means there is very little value other than traffic for agents, and the classified provides no other value to agents.