The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) concludes that the acquisition of Giphy by Facebook would reduce competition between social media platforms. Therefore, the solution is Facebook selling Giphy to an approved buyer. In particular, the CMA notices that such an acquisition could increase Facebook's market power by limiting other platforms’ access to Giphy GIFs and driving more traffic to Facebook-owned websites; also, Facebook would be able to change the Giphy GIFs' terms of access, thus requiring the other platforms to provide more user data. Finally, the CMA assessed that the acquisition limits the potential innovation because Giphy’s advertising services could compete with Facebook's advertising services.
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