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Meta to sell Giphy after UK watchdog confirms ruling

theguardian.com

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Re: Meta to sell Giphy after UK watchdog confirms ruling

#51

Post by celim307 »

dingaling wrote: post #20
aaronharnly wrote: post #10

> 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 strategi…

Surely this is a market issue. Give it sufficient time and someone will work out how to wrap a derivative around GIFs.

Nfts?

Re: Meta to sell Giphy after UK watchdog confirms ruling

#52

Post by mellosouls »

shubhamjain wrote: post #32

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 befo…

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.

Re: Meta to sell Giphy after UK watchdog confirms ruling

#53

Post by bombcar »

aaronharnly wrote: post #10

> 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 strategi…

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)

Re: Meta to sell Giphy after UK watchdog confirms ruling

#54

Post by robertlagrant »

rchaud wrote: post #47
shubhamjain wrote: post #32

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 befo…

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 offi…

> 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.

Re: Meta to sell Giphy after UK watchdog confirms ruling

#55

Post by simiones »

pipeline_peak wrote: post #7
smcleod wrote: post #2

Glad to see this. Now split up the whole company.

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.

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.

Re: Meta to sell Giphy after UK watchdog confirms ruling

#56

Post by pipeline_peak »

simiones wrote: post #55
pipeline_peak wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

>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?

Re: Meta to sell Giphy after UK watchdog confirms ruling

#57

Post by davidgerard »

shubhamjain wrote: post #32

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 befo…

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."

Re: Meta to sell Giphy after UK watchdog confirms ruling

#58

Post by mathstuf »

shubhamjain wrote: post #32

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 befo…

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.

Re: Meta to sell Giphy after UK watchdog confirms ruling

#59

Post by davidgerard »

robertlagrant wrote: post #54
rchaud wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 offi…

> 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.

then they are free not to operate in the UK.

You seem surprised that UK law holds in the UK.

Re: Meta to sell Giphy after UK watchdog confirms ruling

#60

Post by Bayart »

dingaling wrote: post #20
aaronharnly wrote: post #10

> 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 strategi…

Surely this is a market issue. Give it sufficient time and someone will work out how to wrap a derivative around GIFs.

Would transcoding GIFs to VP9 and repackaging them into WEBMs be enough to eschew sanctions ?
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