<p>Facebook Inc is acquiring Giphy, a popular website for making and sharing animated images, or GIFs, and will integrate it with its rapidly growing Instagram photo-sharing app, Facebook said in a blog post on Friday.</p>.<p>The cost, which Facebook and Giphy declined to disclose, was placed at around $400 million by news website Axios.</p>.<p>The announcement comes at a time when the largest social media network is under scrutiny from regulators over antitrust concerns. In 2015 Giphy rebuffed a Facebook offer, choosing instead to continue integrating its products with multiple social media platforms, according to news site TechCrunch.</p>.<p>Both companies declined to comment on any earlier talks.</p>.<p>Giphy will become part of Instagram, the photo-sharing site owned by Facebook. Its GIF library, which can integrate with other apps, will be further integrated into Instagram and other Facebook-owned apps, the companies said.</p>.<p>"People will still be able to upload GIFs; developers and API partners will continue to have the same access to GIPHY's APIs; and GIPHY's creative community will still be able to create great content," said Vishal Shah, Instagram's vice president of product, in the blog post.</p>.<p>"We will continue to make GIPHY openly available to the wider ecosystem," Giphy said in a post on blogging website Medium.</p>.<p>The American Economic Liberties Project, a Washington-based antitrust advocacy group, urged regulators to investigate and block the acquisition.</p>.<p>"The Facebook-Giphy merger is just the latest example of the Federal Trade Commission standing by while Facebook and Google centralize control over online communications," said Economic Liberties Executive Director Sarah Miller.</p>.<p>Alphabet Inc's Google acquired GIF platform Tenor in 2018 and integrated it into its image search function, which Miller said undermined the competitive market Giphy had created.</p>.<p>"Now, Facebook is here to pick up the wreckage, and become even more powerful," she said.</p>.<p>A Facebook spokesman said Giphy's current integrations with social platforms like Twitter, Snapchat and ByteDance's TikTok would not change.</p>.<p>The spokesman also said GIFs have no online tracking mechanisms such as pixels or cookies, a concern for privacy advocates wary of Facebook's aggressive collection of personal data for use in targeted advertising.</p>.<p>The Federal Trade Commission did not immediately respond to a request for comment.</p>.<p>Facebook's blog post said 50% of Giphy's traffic already comes from Facebook's apps, with half of that coming from Instagram.</p>
<p>Facebook Inc is acquiring Giphy, a popular website for making and sharing animated images, or GIFs, and will integrate it with its rapidly growing Instagram photo-sharing app, Facebook said in a blog post on Friday.</p>.<p>The cost, which Facebook and Giphy declined to disclose, was placed at around $400 million by news website Axios.</p>.<p>The announcement comes at a time when the largest social media network is under scrutiny from regulators over antitrust concerns. In 2015 Giphy rebuffed a Facebook offer, choosing instead to continue integrating its products with multiple social media platforms, according to news site TechCrunch.</p>.<p>Both companies declined to comment on any earlier talks.</p>.<p>Giphy will become part of Instagram, the photo-sharing site owned by Facebook. Its GIF library, which can integrate with other apps, will be further integrated into Instagram and other Facebook-owned apps, the companies said.</p>.<p>"People will still be able to upload GIFs; developers and API partners will continue to have the same access to GIPHY's APIs; and GIPHY's creative community will still be able to create great content," said Vishal Shah, Instagram's vice president of product, in the blog post.</p>.<p>"We will continue to make GIPHY openly available to the wider ecosystem," Giphy said in a post on blogging website Medium.</p>.<p>The American Economic Liberties Project, a Washington-based antitrust advocacy group, urged regulators to investigate and block the acquisition.</p>.<p>"The Facebook-Giphy merger is just the latest example of the Federal Trade Commission standing by while Facebook and Google centralize control over online communications," said Economic Liberties Executive Director Sarah Miller.</p>.<p>Alphabet Inc's Google acquired GIF platform Tenor in 2018 and integrated it into its image search function, which Miller said undermined the competitive market Giphy had created.</p>.<p>"Now, Facebook is here to pick up the wreckage, and become even more powerful," she said.</p>.<p>A Facebook spokesman said Giphy's current integrations with social platforms like Twitter, Snapchat and ByteDance's TikTok would not change.</p>.<p>The spokesman also said GIFs have no online tracking mechanisms such as pixels or cookies, a concern for privacy advocates wary of Facebook's aggressive collection of personal data for use in targeted advertising.</p>.<p>The Federal Trade Commission did not immediately respond to a request for comment.</p>.<p>Facebook's blog post said 50% of Giphy's traffic already comes from Facebook's apps, with half of that coming from Instagram.</p>