Facebook/Instagram Marriage Under Investigation By FTC

It was a match made in heaven, if you define “heaven” as “competitively squelching a possible rival to your business before it can really get started.”

Yes, Facebook bought Instagram for $1 billion, much to the chagrin of actual photographers and people just sick of seeing everything with a filter slapped over it and a sloppy crop job. And, also, apparently, much to the chagrin of the federal government, which is letting Facebook know it doesn’t like this status.

The Federal Trade Commission is looking to give Facebook’s proposed Instagram purchase “a lengthy investigation,” Reuters reported today.

The commission sent a second request, dated May 16, to Facebook instructing the social-networking company to provide large amounts of data that the “regulators will sift through to ensure that the deal complies with antitrust law,” according to an unnamed source.

It’s unlikely Facebook will actually see any trouble from this — Instagram and FB are technically in different spaces — but it doesn’t help Facebook’s stock, which is rapidly headed towards the toilet, or the fact that Instagram’s owner, Kevin Systrom, might only get $900 million instead of a billion dollars (apparently he originally asked for $2 billion) because of said stock’s rapid decline. Of course, if the Facebook/Instagram deal falls through, he gets $200 million as a breakup fee.

So, in addition to hating him for ruining your Feed, you can now hate him for becoming sickeningly rich for ruining your feed, even if the whole thing goes south.

(Image via Instagram)

×