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| Britain strictly blocks Facebook's acquisition of Giphy |
The UK's decision to block the Facebook Meta owner's takeover of popular animation site Giphy shows a renewed determination to censor digital transactions.
Meta has appealed a ruling by France's market and competition regulator to cancel the 2020 deal and sale of Giphy.
A year and a half later, the social media giant announced that it had acquired a website for creating and sharing GIFs for the first time.
The November decision marked the first time that regulators had banned the takeover of a major tech company. Under the leadership of CEO Andrea Coseli (Andrea Coseli), the CMA has strengthened oversight of the large technology companies, especially Facebook and Google, that dominate the digital advertising space.
Koseli has created a digital marketplace division and hopes to enact new laws to support this. Koseli argues that the digital market has not been viable for a long time.
Koseli believes that controlling the merger is a quick fix the agency can take. The Commission is testing the limits of its ability and reasoning.
Facebook has discovered that Giphy has no business, employee, office or revenue in the UK. It also failed to launch its advertising campaign in the country in its first year.
The agency insists that its work is independent and that the deal is its responsibility. She noted that UK users browse one billion GIFs through Giphy every month.
He added that 73% of the time UK users spend on social media is on WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram.
British regulator orders Facebook and Giphy. for sale
It should be noted that the authorities are concerned about the possibility of Giphy getting into the display advertising business when it is not in the UK. The authorities indicated that, given the dominant position, the social network Meta wants to retain potential competitors.
The agency acted because it believed that Facebook and Giphy could one day become direct competitors.
The CTO attempts to determine the strength of the regulator and whether this step can create a precedent that other regulators can follow.
It can create great uncertainty for companies trying to secure non-competitive deals. But maybe it can in the future, especially if someone has a place in the market.