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Meta to sell Giphy after UK watchdog confirms ruling

theguardian.com

141–150 of 183 posts

Re: Meta to sell Giphy after UK watchdog confirms ruling

#141
post #33
post #2

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

So you wanna split up Google for owning Tenor too? https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/27/google-acquires-gif-keyboard...

>So you wanna split up Google

Unequivocally, yes.

>for owning Tenor too?

No, not specifically for that.

Re: Meta to sell Giphy after UK watchdog confirms ruling

#142
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.

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?

Re: Meta to sell Giphy after UK watchdog confirms ruling

#143

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

you know they can already buy that data from ad networks, right?

You know they're an ad network and that data is like gold to sell to their buyers, right?

Re: Meta to sell Giphy after UK watchdog confirms ruling

#145
post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

Apple's Messages utilizes Giphy in their images search. I constantly see "Via Giphy from #images" tagged under gifs my gf sends me.

Re: Meta to sell Giphy after UK watchdog confirms ruling

#147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You seem surprised that UK law holds in the UK. Then you've misunderstood.

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…

> 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?

Re: Meta to sell Giphy after UK watchdog confirms ruling

#148
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.

The UK doesn't want companies with excessive monopoly power operating in their country. What's difficult to understand about that?

Re: Meta to sell Giphy after UK watchdog confirms ruling

#149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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 disa…

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.

Re: Meta to sell Giphy after UK watchdog confirms ruling

#150
post #64

> 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…

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…

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?
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