Meta To Sell Giphy After UK Regulator Blocks $315 Million Deal (ft.com) 26
Meta has been ordered to sell gif platform Giphy for the second time by the UK competition regulator, bringing an end to the $315mn deal following a two-year antitrust battle. From a report: The Competition and Markets Authority said on Tuesday that Meta's purchase of New York-based Giphy -- the biggest provider of animated images known as gifs to social networks -- would "limit choice for UK social media users and reduce innovation in UK display advertising." The CMA first told Meta to unwind the deal last November, but was forced by the Competition Appeal Tribunal in July to reconsider its conclusion after it upheld one of the social media company's grounds of appeal.
The CMA's final decision underlines the pressure on Silicon Valley's biggest technology companies from the UK regulator, which has broad powers to intervene in tie-ups touching British consumers even when the parties are based overseas. The Giphy deal marked the first time the regulator had moved to dismantle a completed Big Tech deal. Meta on Tuesday said it was "disappointed by the CMA's decision" but accepted the ruling as "the final word on the matter."
The CMA's final decision underlines the pressure on Silicon Valley's biggest technology companies from the UK regulator, which has broad powers to intervene in tie-ups touching British consumers even when the parties are based overseas. The Giphy deal marked the first time the regulator had moved to dismantle a completed Big Tech deal. Meta on Tuesday said it was "disappointed by the CMA's decision" but accepted the ruling as "the final word on the matter."
$400 million (Score:2)
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So the problem Facebook has is that it's very popular with everybody so very quickly you end up with your parents on facebook. There's no kid alive who wants to be on a social media platform with his parents.
This means Facebook is always one generation of teenagers away from Doom. They've been getting around this by buying up every single competitor that the teenagers shifted to before
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I don't use FB at all but I already have insurance and don't need FB to tell me what my philosophy is. I doubt others do either after about 25.
Yes teens are dumb but they still don't have much money compared to adults.
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Have you looked at the crappy, stolen ideas Zuck-the-fuck is currently pushing? "Desperate" is putting it mildly.
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Once your metaverse avatar gets legs you'll see it was all worth it!
The beginning of the End? (Score:2)
If Facebook can't buy their competitors any more due to anti-competition authorities finally catching on, it's going to be in trouble.
I guess there's now an end to 'getting away with it', and not a moment too soon.
That's basically the end of Facebook (Score:5, Insightful)
So the problem Facebook has is that it's very popular with everybody so very quickly you end up with your parents on facebook. There's no kid alive who wants to be on a social media platform with his parents.
This means Facebook is always one generation of teenagers away from Doom. They've been getting around this by buying up every single competitor that the teenagers shifted to before those teenagers aged into becoming consumers.
If Facebook is no longer allowed to follow that business practice then the next generation of teenagers will shift to some other platform to get away from their parents and as soon as they grow into consumers Facebook will become the old folks home. Eventually the old folks will age out of being consumers and Facebook will collapse.
Zuckerberg knows this and it's why he's desperately trying to diversify what his company does. It's not working because he's a terrible businessman who blundered into a great idea and used illegal Monopoly tactics to maintain that idea. He can't compete in the real world.
I do wonder if anyone can solve the social media parent trap. In other words to make a place where you can have the teenagers show up and do teenage things away from prying eyes and then keep them around until they become the kind of valuable consumers social media companies want to monetize, and do all that without anyone noticing because if parents realize their teenagers are using a social media platform to hide what they're doing than the news media will be all over that with fear-mongering and think of the children nonsense.
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That moment has already come and passed. Facebook is what email used to be: For old people. Nobody under the age of 20 is on Facebook unironically these days. Or to have a pretend-profile to appease the old folks and to lull them into thinking they're all just prayers, puppies and hugs.
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If they can't do that then in 10 years when those teenagers are consumers Facebook will start to lose money massively as they bleed advertisers.
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And this is why a move like that is so dangerous to them. If they can't just hoover up everything hip and trendy anymore, they'll be as relevant as MySpace within a decade.
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Giphy was not a competitor to Facebook. It's not even clear why Facebook/Meta bought them.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/1... [cnbc.com]
"In an August court filing, Giphy tried to downplay the significance of Meta’s takeover of the company with an unorthodox argument — its core product offering was going out of fashion, so there’d be no other company willing to buy it.
GIFs “have fallen out of fashion as a content form, with younger users in particular describing gifs as ‘for boomers’
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I mean they could try to innovate and make a better product but like I said zuck is terrible at that. It's like how monarchy works. Because you're great great great great great grandfather was the best at beating people up you get
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"The kids" means people in their 30s and 40s? Numbers don't lie, Giphy is just a file hosting service (more or less) and their traffic is dwindling. Their business model is broken, and it was when Facebook/Meta bought them out. They apparently floated the idea of getting into advertising to get a bigger company that is in the ad business to buy them out (Facebook, Google, etc.). It worked.
The company is probably not worth even $300 million anymore. Good luck getting anyone to pay that (or more!) to take
Jurisiction (Score:2)
I find it an interesting aspect to this story that a UK regulator is blocking one "American" company from buying another.
It's usually the US regulator doing things like this... but given how international these corporations are I don't see why the US regulator has any more right than the UK one.
I suspect the main factor stopping most countries from regulating the Internet giants is the fact that the company might just drop the country if they think the ruling is costly enough, which is probably why it's usu
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Who else outside the US/EU do you want regulating western companies? You want some 8th century Islamic state deciding what is ok to post?
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Who else outside the US/EU do you want regulating western companies? You want some 8th century Islamic state deciding what is ok to post?
Do you want China regulating western companies? Because it's already starting and is going to get worse.
The idea is to start figuring out a global framework before repressive countries start banding together to make their own regulations.
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Of course not but the way these things usually turn out is like the UN human rights council which is now run by the worst human rights violators on the planet.
I prefer American companies not do business in China at all as I see them no different than the Nazis. We should not do business with and support evil. Am I ok with the UK telling two American companies they can't merge? Not really but FB can not do business in UK if they don't like it or should have spread more bribe money around.
Having some sort
Facebook isn't an American company (Score:3)
I find it an interesting aspect to this story that a UK regulator is blocking one "American" company from buying another.
Huh? What American company? Facebook UK Ltd is a British company registered at company house with registration number 06331310, with a head office in Regent's Place, London.
That's the thing you need to understand. An "international company" can be an American company. These tech giants aren't "international companies", they are "multi-national companies" and as such are incorporated in many different countries and therefore their activities are directly subject to the laws of the countries in question. Thes