Facebook Eyes Facial Recognition Firm for Purchase, Report

Face.com is an Israeli company known for its "best in breed" facial recognition technology. When you're launching the kind of offensive that Facebook's mounting in the photosphere, it only makes sense to have top-shelf mug finding technology, like Face.com.

Moreover, Face.com has started peddling its wares in the mobile world--a world that's a top priority at Facebook right now--with an iOS app called KliK, which allows people to "tag" their friends in real time.

Face.com already makes a facial recognition app for Facebook called Photos Tagger, which allows members to scan photo albums on the social network for faces of "friends" and its API is used by the social network in its existing facial recognition scheme.

Even before Facebook grabbed headlines with its acquisition of Instagram and was awash with cash from its IPO, it was rumored that the social network was interested in the facial recognition firm. More than a year ago, for example, the Israeli business newspaper TheMarker published a story claiming Face.com rebuffed efforts to purchase it by Facebook.

The latest speculation about a Face.com acquisition was reported in the Hebrew language newspaper Calcalist, which valued the deal in the "tens of millions" of dollars. Another Hebrew language news site, Newsgeek, pegged the purchase price at between $80 million and $100 million. By comparison, Facebook paid $1 billion for Instagram.