Yahoo! in talks to buy MySpace rival Facebook

by Staff Brand Republic 21-Sep-06, 14:45

LONDON - Yahoo! is in talks to buy US social networking site Facebook in a deal expected to have a pricetag of $1bn (£527m), according to a report.

The Wall Street Journal has reported that Yahoo! is among the suitors Facebook has previously talked to, which has also included Microsoft and Viacom.

Facebook last month signed a three-year deal giving Microsoft sole rights to banner advertising and sponsored links on its site.

Facebook was founded in February 2004 as a college networking site and has more than 9m users. It is privately owned and in June sold a 0.5% stake to marketing services group Interpublic Group.

Yahoo!'s interest in the site follows News Corporation's $580m acquisition of the company behind MySpace.com in July 2005.

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