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Meta to sell Giphy after UK watchdog confirms ruling

theguardian.com

171–180 of 183 posts

Re: Meta to sell Giphy after UK watchdog confirms ruling

#171
post #12

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?

>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.

> the UK could ban Meta from operating there if it didn't comply

They'd fine them. American courts generally recognize British judgements [1].

[1] https://harrisbricken.com/blog/recognition-of-foreign-judgme...

Re: Meta to sell Giphy after UK watchdog confirms ruling

#172
post #170
post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think that proves that either Facebook or UK regulators are rational actors. I’m also not aware of any earnings reports from Facebook point to any return on that investment. It also doesn’t seem like there have been many gify copycats. [*edit] I'd also add that Facebook's share price dropped 15% the month the original deal was announced, and took two months to recover. It seems like the market agreed that it…

This is kind getting tautological here when you’re saying that just because someone/some group values it doesn’t make it valuable, especially when we have two fairly large organizations involved. I’d need your definition of what “valuable” is before we could have a useful conversation

It seems obvious to me that the value of any business deal could be measured in attributed revenue or movement in stock price. On both points, this deal looked like shit.

Re: Meta to sell Giphy after UK watchdog confirms ruling

#173
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.

In addition to the others mentioned: Google Keyboard, Snapchat stickers, Instagram stickers. I think also Telegram

It would be more difficult to think of a popular chat app that doesn’t easily have Giphy available.

Re: Meta to sell Giphy after UK watchdog confirms ruling

#174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

*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?

Hahaha, of all the times to have a brainfart like that! Thanks :)

What surprises me the most is how entrenched that industry is, like it's impossible to get rid of them.

Re: Meta to sell Giphy after UK watchdog confirms ruling

#175
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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 wayb…

Thank you!

Re: Meta to sell Giphy after UK watchdog confirms ruling

#176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I don't think it's a coincidence that the three people who've said something along the same lines have also done it in a Dunning-Kruger-powered sardonic written tone.

Re: Meta to sell Giphy after UK watchdog confirms ruling

#177
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

World War 2 comes to mind

Re: Meta to sell Giphy after UK watchdog confirms ruling

#178
post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Monopoly power over gifs

Re: Meta to sell Giphy after UK watchdog confirms ruling

#179

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…

> having the US tell them to sell a product they acquired similarly.

Has the US actually tried to block a corporate merger between two non-American companies before?

Re: Meta to sell Giphy after UK watchdog confirms ruling

#180
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> poorer security. likely so, Meta does have thousands of competent engineers, ensuring their data remains exactly where they want it to be

> 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.

No. They testified that a single person wouldn't be able to.

> The court-appointed expert asked who at Facebook would be able to answer the question: where is all the information on a single user stored. > > "I don't believe there's a single person that exists who could answer that question. It would take a significant team effort to even be able to answer that question," answered Zarashaw.

https://www.businessinsider.com/meta-doesnt-know-where-all-y...

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