Meta Must Sell Giphy, U.K. Competition Authority Orders in Final Decision
Naman Ramachandran The U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has made a final decision and ordered Meta, which operates Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, to sell GIF provider Giphy. Meta will not appeal the decision. Meta’s $400 million acquisition of Giphy in 2020 fell afoul of the CMA, which provisionally found in Aug. 2021 that the takeover of Giphy would negatively impact competition between social media platforms. In Oct. 2021, the CMA fined Meta for failing to provide regular updates on the the compliance process it had required. And, in Nov. 2021, the CMA ordered Meta to sell Giphy. Meta appealed the decision and the CMA analyzed new submissions from Meta and Giphy. It came to the same conclusions as it did when issuing the original sell order: that Meta would be able to increase its already significant market power by denying or limiting other social media platforms’ access to Giphy GIFs, thereby pushing people to Meta-owned sites, which already make up 73% of user time spent on social media in the U.K. or, by changing the terms of access that could require Giphy customers, such as TikTok, Twitter and Snapchat, to provide more data from U.K. users in order to access Giphy GIFs.