Meta grudgingly agrees to sell Giphy after admitting defeat in UK battle:
Considering that Meta bought WhatsApp and Instagram without issue, it may come as a surprise that Meta's purchase of Giphy will be blocked. But that's the situation, as the United Kingdom's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has now ordered Meta to sell Giphy.
The decision comes two years after the merger came under the increasingly intense scrutiny of UK regulators. Fighting every step of the way, Meta has since said in a statement to Reuters that although it's "disappointed" in the decision, it will "accept today's ruling as the final word on the matter."
Among the reasons why Meta must sell Giphy are the CMA's concerns that Meta and Giphy dominate the GIF marketplace and that Meta could cut off competitors from accessing Giphy content. Meta could also possibly change its terms and charge its competitors exorbitantly for access. This, the CMA feared, threatened to increase Facebook's already dominant presence in the social media marketplace by pushing users to prefer the platform where they can access the best GIFs. The regulator noted that 73 percent of the time UK residents spend on social media is on Facebook.
Also at issue was Giphy's prior place in the display advertising market at the time of Meta's (then Facebook's) $400 million acquisition. The CMA seemed to suggest that Meta's acquisition could have been driven by an urge to shut down a budding Giphy display advertising business that could have diversified display ad choices for UK businesses. (Meta told Ars that it believes there is no evidence to suggest this.) In a press release, the CMA said that Meta already controls half of UK display advertising.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Friday October 21 2022, @04:38PM (3 children)
Just so everybody is clear.
Meta is the fake name Facebook hides behind. It's just stupid old toxic Facebook.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Frosty Piss on Friday October 21 2022, @05:38PM (2 children)
Your dislike of Facebook doesn't change the *fact* that "Meta" is a perfectly normal arrangement of a corporate umbrella entity, and extremely common.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Opportunist on Friday October 21 2022, @10:17PM
Plus, it offers a delightful pun based on Facebook being cancer and it now developed a Metastasis.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Saturday October 22 2022, @05:27AM
I'm not saying it's not normal or common. I'm saying it's important to make sure everybody remembers who's behind it. People easily forget what a company truly is, truly stands for or what it's guilty of when it changes its name or invent bullshit holdings and promote the holding's name right and left instead.
For instance:
BASF is IG Farben
Bayer is Monsanto
Altria is Phillip Morris
Alphabet is Google
...
Remember who's really who and who you're dealing with people. Meta is Facebook. It bears repeating, lest people forget.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 21 2022, @07:51PM
Note that Meta doesn't say that it isn't true, just that there's no evidence to show this.