Rightmove's dominance leads to claims it has 'chokehold' over market

It is often the case that success breeds resentment and so it has proved with Rightmove. The company’s success is undoubted. It dominates Britain’s online property search market, with its site attracting 2.5 billion visits last year.

The group’s business model is also highly profitable, with an operating margin of 74 per cent last year, one of the highest in the FTSE 100. Yet it is not without its critics in the property industry. Three years ago analysts at Jefferies, the investment bank, described Rightmove’s relationship with estate agents as akin to a “psychological chokehold”.

Such was agents’ frustration with the fees they had to pay Rightmove and its closest competitor Zoopla to list properties on their sites that a group of them set up