UK : Facebook could be forced to sell gif creation website Giphy after an investigation by the UK competition regulator found its takeover could harm competition among social media companies and the digital advertising market.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) launched an in-depth investigation earlier this year into Facebook’s acquisition of Giphy, the largest supplier of animated gifs to social networks such as Snapchat, TikTok and Twitter, after identifying a number of concerns about the $400m (£290m) deal which was struck last year.
Gifs are embeddable clips, usually no more than a few seconds long. The most popular gif of 2020 was Thank You by Red & Howling, which shows a cartoon dog expressing its thanks to pandemic essential workers, which Giphy says was viewed more than a billion times.
The watchdog is in the process of setting up a new dedicated digital markets unit, which will police a new enforceable code of conduct to stop tech giants such as Google and Facebook abusing their power when dealing with third parties.
TG
