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Facebook to Buy Giphy for $400M

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Re: Facebook to Buy Giphy for $400M

#451

Post by DoreenMichele »

hk__2 wrote: post #417
nine_k wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at it as at a bad but addictive habit. Hundreds of millions of smokers do harm their health, and through it their own and their neighbors' wealth. But quitting is indeed hard.

You can’t seriously compare smoking and keeping up with friends and family, which is the reason that drives most of the usage of Facebook.

You can’t seriously compare smoking and keeping up with friends and family

You must come from a nice family.

Some people don't. Some people are actively in hiding from their families and things like that.

Some schizophrenics go to in-patient treatment, get better, go home to their nutty relatives and get worse again. This is a known thing.

Re: Facebook to Buy Giphy for $400M

#452

Post by zarriak »

throwaway4715 wrote: post #426
adjkant wrote: post #424

So Facebook basically just bought inside usage info on a ton of direct competition, even if they stop their integration in the future. Messaging: Signal, GroupMe, Telegram, Viber Social Media: Twitter, Snapchat, Reddit, Pinterest, Tiktok Dating: Bumble, Tinder Video: Skype Does anyone else kind of feel weirded out that this isn't illegal? Not surprising legally or for a move for Facebook, but this just feels incredib…

Are you saying that Facebook shouldn't be allowed to own any product that can be shared on a competitors platform? Seems kinda ridiculous.

Yes, do you genuinely believe that they have sufficiently changed after the vast amount of data given away to Cambridge Analytica and other firms just two years ago mean they should have access to historical data?

I genuinely think you should have to opt in to data sharing when a company covered by CCPA is purchased. I think you can make a very compelling case that this sale covers the sale of data from Giphy to Facebook which many users may not want them to do.

Re: Facebook to Buy Giphy for $400M

#454

Post by hedora »

adjkant wrote: post #427
throwaway4715 wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying that Facebook shouldn't be allowed to own any product that can be shared on a competitors platform? Seems kinda ridiculous.

No, I am saying that them retroactively buying it without warning and getting access to the historical data, which users and developers did not intend to give to Facebook, is the off part. If Facebook bought this or developed it themselves and then these companies integrated Giphy, it's obviously very different. Basically this implies that any data you give to any third party can then basically be bought by your comp…

> I think legal language that prevents this would likely be a net good thing.

Language that protects end user data across changes in company ownership basic doesn’t exist.

For one thing, if the company goes bankrupt, the data is an asset of values, and the court will allow them to void prior contracts so that they can sell off assets and pay their debts.

This is legal for the same reason pensions get zeroed out during bankruptcies and acquisitions.

If the new owners can steal retirement money from current and former employees, you can bet they can sell whatever treasure troves of data the company has amassed.

Re: Facebook to Buy Giphy for $400M

#455

Post by whalesalad »

adjkant wrote: post #424

So Facebook basically just bought inside usage info on a ton of direct competition, even if they stop their integration in the future. Messaging: Signal, GroupMe, Telegram, Viber Social Media: Twitter, Snapchat, Reddit, Pinterest, Tiktok Dating: Bumble, Tinder Video: Skype Does anyone else kind of feel weirded out that this isn't illegal? Not surprising legally or for a move for Facebook, but this just feels incredib…

Ostebsibly any of those services is large enough to serve as a middleman proxy for giphy so that their users requests do not ever visit the Giphy servers. Whether that is going to be against the terms or not is to be determined.

Re: Facebook to Buy Giphy for $400M

#456

Post by bottled_poe »

nindalf wrote: post #71
bottled_poe wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yikes. Feels like my privacy is leaking again. Time to find some alternative.

How many times are you going to make the same comment on this thread? This is a pretty good angle for farming karma on HN but you have to be more subtle about it. Other comment - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23192779

I mistakenly posted it on the wrong reply. Should have deleted the other.

Re: Facebook to Buy Giphy for $400M

#457

Post by tcbasche »

djjsjdjsjsjs wrote: post #450
ghaff wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think one difference with "grok" is that, the way it's normally used, there really isn't IMO a perfect English replacement. To me at least, it implies a deeper and broader internalizing of something than saying "I understand it" or "I get it" necessarily implies.

Grok is a bullshit fucking word that people who have been in the tech space too long use to sound cool and obfuscate an otherwise easy concept. "Do you understand it really well?" is infinitely fucking better than "can you grok that?". The first sentence doesn't have all of the disgusting pretentiousness of a tech interview whiteboarding flame session associated with it, where one person has done the problem 100 time…

who hurt you

Re: Facebook to Buy Giphy for $400M

#458

Post by nokya »

adjkant wrote: post #424

So Facebook basically just bought inside usage info on a ton of direct competition, even if they stop their integration in the future. Messaging: Signal, GroupMe, Telegram, Viber Social Media: Twitter, Snapchat, Reddit, Pinterest, Tiktok Dating: Bumble, Tinder Video: Skype Does anyone else kind of feel weirded out that this isn't illegal? Not surprising legally or for a move for Facebook, but this just feels incredib…

I do feel weirded out. Reminds me of WhatsApp's acquisition by Facebook back in 2014: I cancelled my account the minute I learned about this. The only hope is that Telegram acts as a proxy between user searches and Giphy's servers and somehow preserves the privacy of its users.

Re: Facebook to Buy Giphy for $400M

#459

Post by ccktlmazeltov »

Thorentis wrote: post #438
cosmie wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read the privacy policy[1]. Think of Giphy images as a giant, organically shared version of web tracking software. Which complements the coverage of the FB Pixel[2] well, as it worms its way into privacy-conscious areas they might not have FB Pixel coverage such as private communications and security/privacy-minded apps. And without implementing something like a proxy server to pre-cache/sanitize images and strip tra…

Woah, that's a great point. Imagine sharing a gif in Signal and still being tracked by Facebook because every person that loads it needs to first download it from FB servers. It really is getting to the point that if you want privacy, don't touch anything owned by the top 5 tech companies. Better yet, only use Open Source. I never used to be a OSS only person, but the past few months I've started to go that way.

nice try, but this wouldn't work

Re: Facebook to Buy Giphy for $400M

#460

Post by ccktlmazeltov »

adjkant wrote: post #424

So Facebook basically just bought inside usage info on a ton of direct competition, even if they stop their integration in the future. Messaging: Signal, GroupMe, Telegram, Viber Social Media: Twitter, Snapchat, Reddit, Pinterest, Tiktok Dating: Bumble, Tinder Video: Skype Does anyone else kind of feel weirded out that this isn't illegal? Not surprising legally or for a move for Facebook, but this just feels incredib…

This is very American if you ask me, America is all about big corps eating the small businesses.
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