[HN Gopher] Meta to sell Giphy after UK watchdog confirms ruling
___________________________________________________________________
Meta to sell Giphy after UK watchdog confirms ruling
Author : Tomte
Score : 143 points
Date : 2022-10-18 12:09 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| petercooper wrote:
| Regardless of the merits of the case, it's interesting to see
| that a UK watchdog is able to exert such power over a US
| corporation. There's more background here:
| https://taxjustice.net/2022/01/18/the-uk-is-breaking-up-face... -
| they seem to be giving Brexit the credit for UK regulators able
| to make independent decisions from the EU's own competition
| regulators
| gambiting wrote:
| Which is of course complete nonsense and UK has had a
| competition regulator that was effective and able to operate
| independently of EU even before Brexit. Every EU country can
| set the rules what companies can operate in every member state
| and how, and obviously UK was always able to do this.
|
| (For a simple example - look at France constantly fining and
| regulating US tech giants without having to ask Brussels for
| permission)
| petercooper wrote:
| Fair enough. I was just going off of what Nick Shaxson, who
| seems to be quite smart on such matters, said in that post.
| I'm a remainer myself, so to find any sort of "benefit" in
| Brexit is very rare indeed.. ;-)
| vanderZwan wrote:
| Willfully representing how the EU works is a longstanding
| tradition of UK media. The EU even has a dedicated page for
| debunking British tabloid media lies.
|
| edit: sadly I can't find it now, newer post-truth issues like
| Covid-19 seem to drown it out in my search engines
| tremon wrote:
| here you go: https://wayback.archive-
| it.org/11980/20200131183933/https://...
|
| The original URL was
| https://blogs.ec.europa.eu/ECintheUK/euromyths-a-z-index/ .
| It seems the EC itself pulled this page, and the live page
| now redirects to the above page which seems to contain
| blog-style entries for every item, rather than just a list
| of hyperlinks to all articles.
|
| But the original full list is still available via the
| wayback machine as well: https://web.archive.org/web/201603
| 29163353/https://blogs.ec....
|
| _For three decades, the European Commission London
| Office's 'Euromyths' initiative tried to shed light on the
| facts behind stories about the EU in the UK media [..]
| Those rebuttals are now digitalised and searchable on this
| archived site, alongside more recent material [..] We hope
| the site continues to be useful, at least as a historical
| record of how parts of the British media sometimes
| presented the EU and how the Commission responded._
| detritus wrote:
| *misrepresenting :)
|
| But yes, you're otherwise entirely correct. Our country has
| been lied to for decades in this regard particularly. Well
| done them, I guess?
| p0pcult wrote:
| This has been going on since way before the internet--Texas
| used to have de facto veto power over public school textbooks,
| because the Texas Board of Education (or whatever it was named)
| was the single largest buyer of textbooks. If you're a big
| enough buyer, then you start to claim some amount of monopsony
| power.
| rrdharan wrote:
| What's funny is they'll end up selling it to some IAC-type
| conglomerate with a huge data brokering business, and far poorer
| security and privacy practices, but which will escape the eye of
| lazy regulators who will keep looking to target splashy American
| brand names to score political points.
| groovybits wrote:
| > far poorer security and privacy practices
|
| Poorer than Meta? Is that even possible?
| baby wrote:
| I've worked at Meta and I can imagine that other companies
| have worse security in general yeah. I think people here have
| a glamorous idea of how companies run security. Most
| companies don't even have security teams.
| BaseballPhysics wrote:
| Most companies don't have Meta's dragon's hoard of personal
| data.
|
| Meta is essentially a surveillance company, with the
| incredible caveat that they no longer know what data
| they're collecting.
| rrdharan wrote:
| This is exactly the problem.
|
| Plenty of folks who've worked at small startups that haven't
| faced regulatory scrutiny can tell you about how poor the
| common data handling practices are relative to the major
| leagues.
|
| e.g. unilateral write access (no multiparty approvals), no
| TTLs or deletion guarantees, overly broad access, stale /
| unmaintained ACLs, copies of production data all over the
| place, supply chain vulnerabilities, lack of mTLS / endpoint
| security, etc. etc.
|
| The upside (for end users) of big brand names being big
| targets is they have a lot more to lose than your average
| startup that no one will remember when it folds and sells its
| data.
| tfsh wrote:
| > poorer security. likely so, Meta does have thousands of
| competent engineers, ensuring their data remains exactly
| where they want it to be
| youngNed wrote:
| > Meta does have thousands of competent engineers, ensuring
| their data remains exactly where they want it to be
|
| do they, aye?
| https://www.datacenterknowledge.com/security/meta-
| probe-533-...
| charcircuit wrote:
| Practically every website is vulnerable to an attacker
| scraping it. If you give people information it's hard to
| stop them from saving that information.
| BaseballPhysics wrote:
| > Meta does have thousands of competent engineers, ensuring
| their data remains exactly where they want it to be
|
| Meta's own employees testified that it would be impossible
| to enumerate and locate all the data they're either
| collecting or synthesizing about their users.
|
| So you'll forgive me if I don't really believe you.
| tjpnz wrote:
| >"We will continue to evaluate opportunities - including through
| acquisition - to bring innovation and choice to more people in
| the UK and around the world."
|
| How do the people writing this shite sleep at night?
| trinovantes wrote:
| What makes you think it's not written by GPT3?
| Cymrukicks wrote:
| Quite easily on a very expensive bed they bought with that Meta
| money.
| colesantiago wrote:
| This is a huge win against Meta and Facebook, Bravo!
|
| We need to also stop the Figma and Adobe sale as well, we cannot
| allow this anti-competitive sale to go through.
| jmyeet wrote:
| This story is just bizarre.
|
| First and foremost, the time for objecting to an acquisition
| should be before it closes, not after.
|
| Second, forcing a company to "unbundle" like this is really an
| antritrust action and the bar for that should be pretty high.
| Objections to acquisitions can be done on potential issues. De-
| merging a company should pretty much be based on actual not
| potential violations (IMHO).
|
| Third, all of this is over Giphy. There are alternatives (eg
| Tenor). This is not a market any company (other than maybe Apple
| and Google by virtue of owning the platform) can dominate.
| There's no network effect like there is with WhatsApp or
| Instagram. This was not a large company. Giphy was miniscule.
|
| Fourth, creating a GIF keyboard and support in your apps is
| pretty easy. I imagine this is what Meta is going to do instead.
| So what's been achieved exactly?
|
| Lastl, government power and attention is limited. Please let's
| use it for something useful. This doesn't affect anyone. This
| doesn't help anyone. Let's do things that do.
| iam-TJ wrote:
| The CMA did object [0]; in fact it made an order preventing
| Meta/Facebook from continuing but the order was ignored.
| Meta/Facebook was fined as a result [1].
|
| [0] https://www.gov.uk/cma-cases/facebook-inc-giphy-inc-
| merger-i...
|
| [1] https://www.gov.uk/cma-cases/facebook-inc-giphy-inc-
| merger-i...
| hunterb123 wrote:
| Why care what the UK has to say about US matters?
|
| Especially about whether a social media company can own a meme
| gif repo...
|
| There's got to be much more pressing matters for them right?
| sofixa wrote:
| > Why care what the UK has to say about US matters?
|
| Because US regulators are too lazy/corrupt/starved to do the
| job they exist to do. Someone has to reign in oligopolies
| amassing even more power and dominance, and it obviously isn't
| going to be the US, so whoever wants to step in, be our
| collective guest. This time it was the UK, next up is the EU
| Digital Markets and Digital Services Acts.
|
| And yes, there are much more pressing matters, which others are
| dealing with. A competition comission doesn't have other duties
| than to block such obvious abuses.
| hunterb123 wrote:
| > Because US regulators are too lazy/corrupt/starved to do
| the job they exist to do.
|
| Personally the fact that the US regulators aren't wasting
| time monitoring gif repo purchases is a good thing in my
| book.
|
| > Someone has to reign in oligopolies amassing even more
| power and dominance
|
| Quite a hyperbole for a gif repo purchase. Can FB purchase
| Tenor then? Who could purchase Giphy, any other social media
| giant?
|
| This is all virtue signaling because they know _certain_
| people will eat it up.
| sofixa wrote:
| > Personally the fact that the US regulators aren't wasting
| time monitoring gif repo purchases is a good thing in my
| book.
|
| Good thing they're spending that time productively... Not
| blocking any egregious merger/acquisition from the past
| decade?
|
| > Quite a hyperbole for a gif repo purchase. Can FB
| purchase Tenor then? Who could purchase Giphy, any other
| social media giant?
|
| Facebook, or any other social media giant, shouldn't be
| allowed to expand in distributors to their competitors.
| Giphy is used by everyone, Facebook tracking Telegram users
| isn't something anyone needs. Anyone can purchase Giphy as
| long as it doesn't give them an unfair advantage, so nobody
| in the chat market.
|
| > This is all virtue signaling because they know certain
| people will eat it up.
|
| Who are those certain people?
| tjpnz wrote:
| >Why care what the UK has to say about US matters?
|
| Because the UK could ban Meta from operating there if it didn't
| comply.
| hunterb123 wrote:
| FB should call their bluff and tell them to spin up a version
| of China's great firewall and try to block people then.
|
| I guess UK does already have a firewall with it's nanny-state
| porn filters though.
|
| I can see it now, "All of UK blocked FB today because of meme
| gif service purchase" Great headline, wonderful use of
| regulation /s
|
| Meanwhile you have actual problems going on and a crashing
| economy, but at least we prevented a meme service from being
| bought!
| benwad wrote:
| The UK doesn't need to block Facebook, they can just ban
| advertisers from buying any ad space on there. FB could
| still provide a service in the UK but it wouldn't make them
| any money.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > they can just ban advertisers from buying any ad space
| on there
|
| So for example, Apple US couldn't buy ads on Facebook,
| because it shows ads to UK users? How do you envisage
| this working?
| tjpnz wrote:
| The idea would be to prevent UK residents from purchasing
| ads or other products and services from Meta. There are
| various ways of enforcing that.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > FB could still provide a service in the UK but it
| wouldn't make them any money.
|
| I was replying to this. If they can still show non-UK ads
| to UK residents then they can still make money.
| [deleted]
| dom96 wrote:
| Meta also has offices and thousands of employees in the UK.
| Presumably the UK government could ban them from operating
| in the UK completely which would be a pretty big hit to
| those employees and all the teams that are based there.
| hunterb123 wrote:
| The question is if the UK wants to really destroy
| thousands of jobs over a gif service acquisition,
| especially in this economy.
|
| I would hope they wouldn't do that to their own people.
| You're not really hurting FB, you're hurting your own
| citizens.
|
| Is that really the best use of regulation, political
| power, etc?
|
| Can FB buy Tenor then? Is any gif service off limits?
|
| Who can buy Giphy? Any other social media?
| handelaar wrote:
| Someone's clearly not familiar with the UK government's
| approach to jobs and the economy
| bpye wrote:
| Boris "Fuck Business" Johnson was only recently PM - http
| s://www.ft.com/content/8075e68c-7857-11e8-8e67-1e1a0846c.
| ..
| somehnacct3757 wrote:
| It's funny that digital billboard space is the main reason they
| cite.
|
| To me the much bigger threat was that Giphy had integrations into
| many other chat and messaging apps which Facebook also competes
| with. Buying Giphy gave them new insight into competitor usage.
| Facebook could see which chat apps you were using and who you
| were talking to on them. All they had to do was fingerprint the
| gifs you sent to your friends
| i_have_an_idea wrote:
| you know they can already buy that data from ad networks,
| right?
| simiones wrote:
| What do ad networks have to do with the messengers I use? Few
| if any messenger apps actually sell ad space inside the app.
| joshmanders wrote:
| You know they're an ad network and that data is like gold to
| sell to their buyers, right?
| weird-eye-issue wrote:
| Source?
| aaronharnly wrote:
| > The regulator said Meta would be able to increase its "already
| significant market power" by cutting off the supply of gifs to
| rivals, or demand more user data from them in order to keep using
| Giphy.
|
| I'm imagining a future in which Meta cuts off the winter supply
| of GIFs to the European Union, setting the populace into a
| restive period of incoherent communication.
|
| Perhaps the EU, UK, and US should establish strategic
| (inter)national GIF reserves?
| bombcar wrote:
| This is all the EUs fault. They were warned multiple times that
| they need to get home grown GIF supplies, instead of importing
| all their GIFs from the US or Russia.
|
| And now that the pipeline for dashcam videos is gone, what do
| they have? Nothing but a few PNGs that they sadly try to
| animate in a poor imitation of a GIF.
|
| (sarcasm gif goes here)
| aliqot wrote:
| > that they need to get home grown GIF supplies, instead of
| importing all their GIFs from the US
|
| As an Amish idk how to feel about this.
| notadev wrote:
| Did you mail this comment to HN for it to be posted?
| aliqot wrote:
| I get that a lot.
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33039793
| smegsicle wrote:
| its like the english don't even want to understand
| aliqot wrote:
| > the english don't even want to understand
|
| I've never found this to be the case, people are
| generally curious and courteous.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Excuse me, I feel compelled to point out that it's _FIG_ in
| France.
| saghm wrote:
| Reminds me of UTC[1]. Maybe the compromise is to call it
| "IGF"?
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coordinated_Universal_Ti
| me#Ety...
| filiphorvat wrote:
| Theux UE teuc oueur FIGues!!!
| runlevel1 wrote:
| Funny enough, in French its full name is "Le Graphics
| Interchange Format"[^1]
|
| [1]:
| https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_Interchange_Format
| [deleted]
| ch4s3 wrote:
| The phrase "cutting off the supply of gifs to rivals" may be
| one of the dumbest things I've ever read in my life. I honestly
| can't believe someone wrote that in a legal opinion.
|
| To me this smacks of our leaders, broadly, in the West being
| too old and too far removed from how people operate and live in
| the world today. This is like Lindsey Graham, who was once on
| the senate technology committee, admitting that he had never
| sent an email in 2015. Truly mind boggling.
| Karunamon wrote:
| This kind of barely surface level understanding by clueless
| bureaucrats (remember "a series of tubes"?) is generally what
| you sign up for when you ask for regulation in technology. It
| is the reason I am usually skeptical of such calls for
| legislation, because the end result could be worse than what
| we started with.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| I'm inclined to agree. This reminds me of the anti-piracy
| legislation.
| dimmke wrote:
| I laughed so hard when I read this. This is legitimately
| funnier than most things that are trying to be funny like
| sketches/standup.
| saurik wrote:
| I am under the impression that this is kind of true, though,
| in that you might think of Giphy as a massive pile of user
| content under dubious or illegitimate licensing, but it
| actually (ridiculously) is a repository of exclusively-
| licensed content that is contributed by such groups as motion
| picture companies (and which is then also what kind of led to
| the downfall of the concept, as the existence of Giphy and
| its narrow catalog of official gifs OK'd by marketing and
| legal departments started to feel stale).
| ch4s3 wrote:
| Gifs in the vein of gify seem like a fad that has already
| crested, and I'm of the opinion that regulating internet
| fads is an overreach.
| lovich wrote:
| It's a library of content for a feature that's considered
| table stakes for modern chat clients. If it wasn't worth
| anything why would Facebook have paid so much for it?
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| Facebook doesn't own any of the gifs in giphy. So "cutting
| off the supply" doesn't really make sense. Lots of them
| could probably be considered copyright infringement if a
| company wanted to be litigious enough. I'm pretty sure they
| don't have a license for all the thousands of subtitled
| Star Wars clips you can find on there, for example.
| lovich wrote:
| Cutting off the easy to use single place for content can
| have the same affect on usage rates as actually legally
| limiting access. Most people on this forum work in an
| industry where it's common knowledge that even an extra
| second of initial load time will drastically increase
| your bounce rate. The frictionless experience you get
| with giphy is part of the content curation that is the
| moat for them
| ch4s3 wrote:
| > considered table stakes for modern chat clients
|
| I'm not so sure about that. I rarely see anyone using them
| anymore and have read reports that usage is declining. Even
| if it is table stakes, nothing stops you from rendering
| gifs without gify integration.
| lovich wrote:
| Nothing stops you from starting a new service for any
| sort of content library. The moat is in the content
| creation/curation, and in this case that content is
| centered around gifs.
|
| If you want to get really reductive we could point
| towards any sort of content based business on the
| internet as merely moving files over http/https but I
| don't think anyone would find it reasonable to compare
| Netflix and Kindle's book library as competing in the
| same market
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| > Nothing stops you from starting a new service for any
| sort of content library.
|
| Content licensing does. Try creating an alternative
| streaming platform that has the entire Netflix library
| and see how quickly you get shut down.
|
| Facebook can't sue you if you create a rival gif service.
| None of the value is in their "content". All the value is
| in the search and ui
| ch4s3 wrote:
| > All the value is in the search and ui
|
| I'm pretty sure that value is approximately $0.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| Why would you even want to for gifs? The value seems
| super low compared to the effort. What value did gify
| even provide facebook? The data is probably next to
| worthless. Gifs in text chat seem like a fading fad, and
| are probably a bad user experience. The whole thing seems
| like a huge boondoggle, and the idea that it gives
| facebook any leverage anywhere is laughable.
| lovich wrote:
| I'm going to point towards Facebook spending 600 million
| to buy giphy and the regulators deciding this gave too
| much monopoly power to the point of requiring Meta to
| sell the business, as self evident proof that it's
| valuable.
|
| I get that you, personally, don't value it but large
| organizations apparently do
| LocalH wrote:
| > The phrase "cutting off the supply of gifs to rivals" may
| be one of the dumbest things I've ever read in my life. I
| honestly can't believe someone wrote that in a legal opinion.
|
| I would very much doubt that was the actual wording, that's
| most likely a paraphrasing by the author of this article. The
| final report is not released yet, but according to the
| summary pdf linked from https://www.gov.uk/cma-
| cases/facebook-inc-giphy-inc-merger-i... the phrasing is
| likely to be closer to "On this basis, we consider that
| Facebook would also have an incentive to foreclose its rivals
| from access to GIPHY."
| ch4s3 wrote:
| > On this basis, we consider that Facebook would also have
| an incentive to foreclose its rivals from access to GIPHY.
|
| That seems like a slightly more intelligent wording of the
| same bad argument to me. There's no real limit on the
| supply of gifs on the internet, and they aren't really in
| particularly high demand. In fact they're already falling
| out of fashion with younger users. You'll be hard pressed
| to find many people under 25 using them at all.
| viridian wrote:
| Can confirm, reacting with gifs is 100% a boomer thing.
| And when I say boomer I mean anyone born before 1995.
| notahacker wrote:
| There's no real limit to the supply of gifs on the
| internet, and yet Meta spent $600m on a website hosting
| third party gifs that made almost zero revenue. I don't
| think they were going to get very far with arguments that
| nobody cares about gifs...
|
| One the other hand, the owner of Giphy absolutely does
| get to limit which websites get to continue displaying
| the gifs that several years' of their user-generated
| content backlinked to Giphy.com
|
| Not surprising that some bodies think the party making
| that decision shouldn't be Meta.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| > One the other hand, the owner of Giphy absolutely does
| get to limit which websites get to continue displaying
| the gifs that several years' of their user-generated
| content backlinked to Giphy.com
|
| I guess my question would be so what? You can cache them
| on your own system, if you wanted. However, I doubt
| historical shit posts and reaction gifs have any real
| value to anyone. Frankly it seems laughable that Facebook
| paid $660m for Gify in the first place.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| > Frankly it seems laughable that Facebook paid $660m for
| Gify in the first place.
|
| It's another vector for collecting user analytics.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| I question the value there. Who cares that someone likes
| Seinfeld clips with George? Is that worth anything at
| all? You can get basically that data from Experian anyway
| without all of the hassle.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Maybe someone should have told Meta that when they bought
| Giphy!
| duckmysick wrote:
| > You'll be hard pressed to find many people under 25
| using them at all.
|
| What do they use instead?
| ch4s3 wrote:
| From what I've seen, text. I've heard a lot of younger
| folks call gifs "cringe". It seems like a dead trend,
| even millennials I know have mostly stopped using them.
| duckmysick wrote:
| It seems like we've come full circle then.
|
| Maybe we can expect text emoticons (the ones with a
| hyphen for a nose) making a comeback soon.
| viridian wrote:
| They never went away, they just started being used
| ironically, but yeah, I do think we've already entered a
| post-ironic phase of text emotes
|
| :-)
| dingaling wrote:
| Surely this is a market issue. Give it sufficient time and
| someone will work out how to wrap a derivative around GIFs.
| celim307 wrote:
| Nfts?
| fknorangesite wrote:
| I'm gonna orchestrate a gif pump and dump via /r/memeeconomy.
| I bet I could make almost $256.
| 2Gkashmiri wrote:
| give me my $69 please
| Bayart wrote:
| Would transcoding GIFs to VP9 and repackaging them into WEBMs
| be enough to eschew sanctions ?
| blululu wrote:
| No, Giphy, GifyCat, Tenor and pretty much every other gif
| distribution service has already done something like this
| from the get go. The GIF is just not well suited for large
| scale distribution when html supports <video> elements that
| support non-garbage file formats. I would assume the
| current ruling is meant to cover 'gifs' as a broad term for
| looping short form video.
| spookie wrote:
| GIF ain't garbage. It's still king for certain types of
| images, a format from the 80's.
| rswail wrote:
| When the NAFO have defeated the orcs in the current conflict,
| they will need a new enemy.
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| Still sad Electric Objects ended up selling to Giphy
| nickdothutton wrote:
| We must not allow a GIF gap to develop.
| brippalcharrid wrote:
| The best time to develop a Strategic GIF Stockpile would have
| been 20 years ago; the second best time is now. Horrors would
| await if our geopolitical adversaries gained the upper hand and
| had the ability to restrict our access to memetic weaponry
| during a time of crisis.
| beauHD wrote:
| It's amazing how something as harmless as a .GIF gets weaponized
| by big tech and abused for things like 'sentiment analysis' and
| profiling of users. This is why we can't have nice things :(
| smcleod wrote:
| Glad to see this. Now split up the whole company.
| rvz wrote:
| Exactly. Also we need to do the same for Google, Apple, Amazon
| and Microsoft too.
| pipeline_peak wrote:
| Split up what, a declining social network for boomers?
|
| You all love to point the finger at Facebook in this 90s evil
| Microsoft fashion. Well TikTok is erecting behind your back and
| they're no stranger to data selling and Chinesr govt
| affiliation.
| simiones wrote:
| At the very least, FB, WhatsApp and Instagram should be
| separate companies. And WA is the world's most popular chat
| app by far, so this is not some unimportant bit player.
| pipeline_peak wrote:
| >this is not some unimportant bit player
|
| Sure, but what about Google and Amazon, you don't think
| they're bigger threats that UK's limited resources should
| be focused on first?
| coldpie wrote:
| Sure, break them up, too. That would be great. The
| article under discussion is about Facebook.
| pipeline_peak wrote:
| And my response to the article is that there are way
| bigger fish to fry than splitting up a dying social media
| conglomerate. Google and Amazon are far more powerful and
| dominant than Meta and you know it.
|
| Sent from my Android phone through Chrome. BRB, I just
| got a package and I need to check my AWS config.
| coldpie wrote:
| You sound kinda crazy, friend. It is possible for several
| things to matter at the same time. This article is about
| Facebook, so we're discussing Facebook.
| pipeline_peak wrote:
| pipeline_peak wrote:
| It's possible for several things to happen, but there's a
| limited amount of resources that can be applied at a
| time. I don't think Facebook is the bigger picture.
|
| >This article is about Facebook, so we're discussing
| Facebook
|
| My subject, which was formed in my thread, is a response
| to the original post.
|
| >You sound kinda crazy, friend
|
| Now you're just being emotionally immature.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| The dying social media conglomerate can be warmup before
| going after more powerful companies. Like a vaccine to
| stimulate the antitrust immune system, if you will.
| pipeline_peak wrote:
| Any experience gained cab also be said for the opponent.
| Facebook and Amazon are completely different entities.
| parkingrift wrote:
| Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Oculus. Force them to
| divest these companies, and then these companies can compete
| with each other in the open market.
|
| >Split up what, a declining social network for boomers?
|
| Yes, definitely yes. Competition is good, yes?
| webmobdev wrote:
| Credit where credit is due, Meta / FB identified early on
| that people are moving on to mobile and acquired WhatsApp and
| Instagram at the right time (WhatsApp and Instagram are
| extremely popular with the young).
| sofixa wrote:
| > WhatsApp and Instagram are extremely popular with the
| young
|
| _were_. Then came Snapchat and later TikTok. Instagram is
| declining in users, meanwhile WhatsApp is a cross-
| generational norm in some countries for whatever reason (it
| has atrocious UX).
| pipeline_peak wrote:
| People don't use TikTok to communicate with each other,
| Snapchat seems pretty stagnant.
| ulfw wrote:
| So you wanna split up Google for owning Tenor too?
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/27/google-acquires-gif-keyboard...
| drannex wrote:
| I know you weren't expecting an answer: But yes, split them
| up too.
| parkingrift wrote:
| >So you wanna split up Google
|
| Unequivocally, yes.
|
| >for owning Tenor too?
|
| No, not specifically for that.
| smcleod wrote:
| Yes?
| coldpie wrote:
| I don't think anyone asking for Facebook to be split up would
| be sad to see Google split up, too. But the article under
| discussion is about Facebook.
| anycans wrote:
| I cant imagine having any issue with google being split up.
| joshmanders wrote:
| uhhhh yes?
| LatteLazy wrote:
| Given the enormous issues the Uk has with (lack of) competition,
| as a Brit I find this peak British politics.
| maxdo wrote:
| Non sure why everyone is so happy to kill the remaining of big
| employer, in the crisis year. Facebook as social media kind is
| dying regardless of this giphy decision.
| pipeline_peak wrote:
| It feels like a scare tactic. They're picking on the ever
| decrepit Facebook to warn the others they aren't untouchable.
| tehwebguy wrote:
| This is the funniest thing ever to me. Everyone who thinks about
| this for more than a moment realizes Giphy has never had _any
| value_ at all. They might as well be licensing different types of
| burps.
| causi wrote:
| Giphy's primary functionality is pissing off people trying to
| use Google Image Search to find an actual .gif file only to
| find nothing but silent videos pretending to be gifs.
| Aissen wrote:
| > nothing but silent videos pretending to be gifs.
|
| Actually a good use of tech, does google image search allow
| searching silent videos ?
| somehnacct3757 wrote:
| If you think about it for more than 2 moments you will see that
| owning Giphy allows Facebook to see which chat apps you're
| using (via the api key for the app's Giphy integration) and who
| you're talking to on them (by attaching an id to each gif
| similar to how tracking pixels work in email.) Most chat
| clients automatically load images, triggering the tracker.
|
| This gives Facebook unprecedented visibility into the user
| counts, usage patterns, and social graph of any chat app with a
| Giphy integration. These apps compete with Facebook's own chat
| apps.
| jeffwask wrote:
| But it's just gifs, lol roflface. The shortsightedness of
| everyone on this thread who are all just too happy to hand
| everything to monopolies.
| camdat wrote:
| Could you provide an example of a competitor app that
| integrates Giphy? It feels like a lot of people _think_ this
| is the explanation, but the chat apps I use defer gifs to the
| keyboard.
| somehnacct3757 wrote:
| Discord has /giphy and Slack does as well, although Slack's
| is via addon. Slack considers this addon an Essential App
| which gives it top billing on their marketplace.
| joshmanders wrote:
| Apple's Messages utilizes Giphy in their images search. I
| constantly see "Via Giphy from #images" tagged under gifs
| my gf sends me.
| BaseballPhysics wrote:
| Signal, for one.
| skizm wrote:
| Is it also illegal if giphy goes back to being an independent
| private company, but then Meta leases their IP for like 9999
| years or something? Or are there similar (the same?) laws that
| prevent an arrangement like that?
| shubhamjain wrote:
| At first I thought Giphy might have been a UK company, but no.
| It's an American company founded in New York. Ignoring the merits
| of the judgement--ridiculous as they are--does no one sense
| terrible outreach in issuing a ruling on a merger about two
| companies which are in no way related to the country issuing it?
|
| This has terrible repercussions for the American tech economy.
| Every big tech company would think twice before acquiring another
| company. What if years from now, EU rules that Adobe's
| acquisition of Figma was illegal and it should unwind it?
| Perhaps, this is one reason why Microsoft is choosing to home-
| grow clones of Notion[1] and Canva[2], instead of acquiring them.
| Maybe that's the path big tech would be forced to take from now
| on.
|
| [1]: https://medium.com/geekculture/microsoft-loop-clones-
| notion-...
|
| [2]: https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-announces-canva-
| comp...
| rswail wrote:
| You do realize that the US applies that the same sort of
| regulatory business processes for overseas companies that wish
| to operate in the US.
|
| In fact, the US "reach" into overseas trading including banking
| and other business processes is much more intrusive than any EU
| or non-US business regulation of US companies.
| mostertoaster wrote:
| Exactly. People seem to be forgetting this most of all in
| this thread.
|
| Though I can't recall any specific times where the US blocked
| the acquisition/merger between two European countries.
| mostertoaster wrote:
| Whoops. I mean European companies. (Reading it now the us
| most definitely meddles with whole countries)
| mellosouls wrote:
| _does no one sense terrible outreach in issuing a ruling on a
| merger about two companies which are in no way related to the
| country issuing it_
|
| Its been a long time since the country of origin of an internet
| service like these mattered _practically_ to the end-user, so
| no, no over-reach in that regard at all.
| tootie wrote:
| I wonder if Meta just isn't interested in fighting any more
| because Giphy isn't that valuable to them. Gif mania has ebbed.
| The court ruling is giving them a pretense to cut their losses
| and save face.
| christophilus wrote:
| > Every big tech company would think twice before acquiring
| another company.
|
| I agree with your sentiment, but this seems like a good
| outcome.
| coldpie wrote:
| > Every big tech company would think twice before acquiring
| another company .
|
| Great! As an American, I'm thrilled there are governments in
| the world that still place people & competition at a higher
| priority than Mark's wallet. My government has completely given
| up on the idea of anti-trust enforcement.
| imnotreallynew wrote:
| It's a gif maker..fretting about anti-trust in this case
| seems a little bizarre to me.
| influx wrote:
| Meta is getting creamed by TikTok and the market in general
| without the need for regulation by European bureaucrats that
| you haven't elected democratically.
|
| They could just as easy create regulations which are
| impossible for startups to follow that actually cement big
| tech into power unintentionally
|
| If you want more enforcement, vote in government in your own
| country. At least we might be able to fix that later.
| arrosenberg wrote:
| I feel so much better that China's state sponsored social
| media platform is what constitutes "competition". Clearly
| no regulation needed here.
| influx wrote:
| Weird they aren't getting regulated....
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| profstasiak wrote:
| 195 countries in the world. I want to become president of one
| just to force FB to acquire Giphy again
| beckingz wrote:
| So the repercussions are more competition and less large
| companies buying smaller companies and running them into the
| ground?
| _aavaa_ wrote:
| No, the repercussion is that a country other than America is
| deciding whether or not one American company is allowed to
| buy another American company.
|
| Then replace America which the country name of your choosing.
| lopis wrote:
| These companies operate int he UK and in the EU. Naturally,
| they must follow local laws and abide to local rulings,
| otherwise they are not allowed to operate. This is nothing
| new. GDPR is mandatory to all American companies that want
| to operate in the EU as well. What's the confusion?
| _aavaa_ wrote:
| GDPR applies to the actions that companies can take _in_
| the EU and how they must interact _with_ EU citizens. It
| does not apply to non-EU citizens.
|
| This is the UK making decision of how Meta must act with
| respect to non-UK citizens and in areas other than the
| UK.
| nextaccountic wrote:
| Did you know that American sanctions are applied even to
| non-American companies doing business with non-American
| companies?
| davidgerard wrote:
| Because they operate in the UK. If they want to keep operating
| in the UK, they get to obey UK laws.
|
| It's really pretty easy to understand.
|
| There is no way in which this is "terrible outreach", it's
| literally "you want to operate in our market? obey our rules."
| mathstuf wrote:
| If Meta wants to not be subject to UK or EU rules, they could
| certainly stop doing business there...
|
| Personally, I'm really tired of seeing good products get
| subsumed into these faceless conglomerates, watered down, then
| finally borg'd into some tiny feature in the corner of the main
| app. Plenty of good ideas get tossed in the bin by these
| companies because they don't make 7-figure revenues out of the
| gate instead of being allowed to make something that makes
| self-sustaining revenue as its own business.
|
| If businesses are looking for a buyout, I'd appreciate some up-
| front notice that I'll have to look for another solution once
| their dream is attained instead of being slapped in the face
| with a "hey, we got bought, but we're sticking around!" to "uh,
| we lied, it's going away; you have a week to save any data,
| hope you're not on vacation" a few months later.
| joshmanders wrote:
| > If businesses are looking for a buyout, I'd appreciate some
| up-front notice that I'll have to look for another solution
| once their dream is attained instead of being slapped in the
| face with a "hey, we got bought, but we're sticking around!"
| to "uh, we lied, it's going away; you have a week to save any
| data, hope you're not on vacation" a few months later.
|
| Your upfront notice is not paying for the service.
|
| If you use it for free, the chances of buyout are high and
| you'll get this issue. Companies that don't need the buyout
| don't ever have this issue.
| mathstuf wrote:
| Sure. If they want the free tier to be a taste, then build
| it that way (see `sr.ht` for a service I believe to be
| doing this well though I don't use it personally). If it is
| sold as a loss-leader to capture "growth", that just sounds
| like bad business planning to me.
|
| FWIW, I pay for the services I highly value (news sites,
| media, email, etc.), but other times there's just a gap of
| "free and mostly suitable" to "expensive and overkill"
| that's too hard to justify knowing that my contributions
| aren't going to prevent the first bucket from overloading
| the boat at some point and leaving "everyone" out to sea in
| the process.
|
| I'd much rather see "sorry, we can't maintain the status
| quo into the future; we'll grandfather the early believers
| in at their current level (or some X% over their current
| usage up to whatever cap existed) and the free tier now has
| Y% fewer features so that we can continue to maintain what
| we do into the future" instead of "we sold out to Meta"
| leaving even paying customers holding the sadness that
| entails.
| theGnuMe wrote:
| Should Meta refuse I imagine the UK would ban them from doing
| business in the UK.
| beardyw wrote:
| I think by "big company" you probably mean those who do
| business in other countries. Doing business in other countries
| requires you to be subject to the decisions of they make if you
| want to do business there. I think if neither was doing
| business in the UK (I can only dream) there would be no case to
| answer.
| rchaud wrote:
| I take it you've read the judgement in full and are familiar
| enough with EU competition laws to dismiss the evidentiary
| basis of the court's findings /s
|
| This has no more repercussions for "American tech" than any
| other US company that has a business and tax presence in the
| EU. The EU has previously ordered Microsoft to sell Windows
| without Windows Media Player in EU markets. Yet Facebook still
| saw fit to open an office there.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > The EU has previously ordered Microsoft to sell Windows
| without Windows Media Player in EU markets. Yet Facebook
| still saw fit to open an office there.
|
| There's a difference between a build tweak for another
| market, and a non-US country reaching into the US and
| blocking an acquisition of one US company by another.
| ajvs wrote:
| The UK doesn't want companies with excessive monopoly power
| operating in their country. What's difficult to understand
| about that?
| davidgerard wrote:
| then they are free not to operate in the UK.
|
| You seem surprised that UK law holds in the UK.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > You seem surprised that UK law holds in the UK.
|
| Then you've misunderstood.
| joshmanders wrote:
| I think the only one misunderstanding here is you.
|
| Meta is operating in the UK. Just because it is an
| American company, they have a presence in the UK. The UK
| government is demanding they sell Giphy, they don't
| _HAVE_ to follow that demand, but they'll most likely be
| banned from operating in the UK, which to them is more
| valuable than keeping Giphy.
|
| This is no different than a UK based company operating in
| the US and having the US tell them to sell a product they
| acquired similarly.
|
| As a matter of fact, the US does this stuff all the time.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > I think the only one misunderstanding here is you.
|
| You and I are talking. There's no "only one" as though
| there's a crowd of people present. Try and imagine you're
| not at the head of a baying mob.
|
| I said that forcing a separate product to be sold in a
| territory by the rulers of that territory is very
| different to the rulers of a territory forcing the
| undoing of a merger in a totally different territory.
|
| If you disagree, and think they're the same, then say
| why. If you don't disagree, then say that. Either way,
| please stop making points that I'm not even necessarily
| disagreeing with, but aren't relevant to what I'm saying?
| joshmanders wrote:
| Do you just like reading your own words, because that's a
| lot of words for yourself to keep saying "no that's not
| what I'm talking about" yet everyone who has come in has
| been on the same page, except you.
| robin_reala wrote:
| Unfortunately, for recent historical reasons this is nothing
| to do with the EU.
| Aissen wrote:
| It seems CMA is also on track to block Microsoft's acquisition of
| Activision, which would wreak havoc into Xbox's plans.
| sofixa wrote:
| Good. Further concentrations of markets subject to vertical
| integrations shouldn't be allowed. It's never in the consumer
| or market's interest to have a vertically integrated behemoth
| developing content exclusive for their platform (be it Disney
| or Microsoft).
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