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FTC probe may delay close of Facebook-Instagram deal

The Financial Times reports that it might take longer for Facebook to win approval to buy Instagram than Facebook has said.

Paul Sloan Former Editor
Paul Sloan is editor in chief of CNET News. Before joining CNET, he had been a San Francisco-based correspondent for Fortune magazine, an editor at large for Business 2.0 magazine, and a senior producer for CNN. When his fingers aren't on a keyboard, they're usually on a guitar. Email him here.
Paul Sloan

The government's probe into Facebook's $1 billion purchase of photo-sharing app Instagram threatens to delay the close of the deal, according to a report in the Financial Times. That could prove distracting while the social-network company is deep into its IPO roadshow.

Citing two people familiar with the matter, the FT says the FTC has begun collecting information from two of Facebook's largest competitors -- presumably Twitter and Google, although the newspaper doesn't say.

Such a probe is routine for any deal of this size, but the FT says this investigation could take six to 12 months. Facebook's S-1 IPO documents say that the company expects to the to close this quarter. It's unclear what such a delay would mean -- both for Facebook's still nascent mobile strategy and potentially for the IPO itself.

A Facebook spokesman declined to comment.