Facebook's Giphy deal investigated by competition authority

Facebook's takeover of Giphy, a search engine for funny reaction images, is being investigated by the UK's competition authority. Announcing the acquisition in May this year, Facebook said that half of Giphy's traffic comes from Facebook apps, including Whatsapp and Instagram. The enforcement means Facebook has to keep the Giphy company, staff, and technology separate from Facebook itself - unless it gets advance written permission from the CMA. Facebook says it plans to roll the company into its Instagram team, where the "Stickers" Giphy provides are most popular. A Facebook company spokesperson said that Giphy "Improves Instagram's offerings by giving people more features and tools". The Republican Senator for Missouri, Josh Hawley, said: "Facebook keeps looking for even more ways to take our data Facebook wants Giphy so it can collect even more data on us."

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