Facebook will emphasize ownership of WhatsApp and Instagram

It will probably become clearer soon that WhatsApp and Instagram are part of Facebook. The two services would be called ‘WhatsApp from Facebook’ and ‘Instagram from Facebook’ respectively, according to rumors.

That reports The Information, which claims to have spoken with three people who have knowledge of the plans. So with the plans, it should become clearer that both WhatsApp and Instagram are owned by Facebook, by adding the label of Facebook to the name.

The plans would have been communicated internally at Facebook, but that would not have gone down well with everyone. The Information reports that “confusion” has arisen among Facebook employees after the decision was announced. That’s probably also because the teams at Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram operate largely independently of each other and Facebook has always said publicly that the services will continue to exist independently of each other.

If Facebook actually implements the name change ‘WhatsApp from Facebook’ and ‘Instagram from Facebook’, the question is what the American authorities think about it. There is already an antitrust investigation into Facebook, and it is also being looked into whether Facebook has bought up potential competitors. The investigation would focus on whether Facebook bought up small tech companies to prevent them from taking market share from Facebook, including Instagram and WhatsApp. For the investigation, the American watchdog FTC is said to have spoken with several founders of tech companies.