Over the weekend rumors began to swirl that Facebook was looking at spending about $100 million to buy Israeli startup Face.com, to access its clever face recognition technology. Now it’s suggested via GigaOm that the momentum for the deal is actually in Russia’s search engine leader Yandex, which invested in Face in 2010, may be looking to sell its large stake in the company for a combination of cash and Facebook stock. It is likely that many such acquisition rumors will surround Facebook now that cash reserves are buffered by the IPO, but this one is particularly interesting: Face recognition systems would be useful for Facebook, although controversial for their privacy implications…and it’s a tech that other tech giants like Google and Apple are exploring too.

Source: Fast Company