Let’s hope the UK’s call for Meta to unwind Giphy deal marks the beginning of a new regulatory landscape
Giphy was founded in February 2013 by two friends after a breakfast conversation about creating a search engine for GIFs that would make conversations on the web more entertaining. To their surprise, it was an overnight success, attracting more than one million users in the first week after its launch.
Meta’s purchase in May 2020 raised numerous suspicions: the regulatory climate was beginning to move away from systematic, unquestioned approval of these kinds of buyouts. Needless to say, there were fears that this would be a way the company with the world’s worst reputation to get even more data on its users (despite Adam Mosseri’s denials) and rivals (Zoom removed Giphy from its interface immediately after the acquisition), or that it would stymie competition and GIF availability for other companies.
In response, the UK regulator launched an investigation that led to an order to unwind the deal. Meta’s subsequent appeals were to no avail, and a few days ago, Meta announced it was selling Giphy to Shutterstock for $53 million in cash, having acquired it in 2020 for $315 million, taking an 83% loss (selling when your buyer knows you have to has never been a good bargaining position).
