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Google reported to be possibly buying YouTube

Tuesday, 10 October 2006

Google reported to be possibly buying YouTube

Google has been having talks about buying popular video-sharing website YouTube for $1.6bn (£856m), according to reports in the Wall Street Journal.

However, discussions between the two sides are said to be at a sensitive stage and the talks could break up, and neither Google nor YouTube were available for comment.

Founded by three former employees of eBay's PayPal electronic payment unit, YouTube has grown quickly into one of the most popular websites on the Internet, with 100 million videos viewed each day.

YouTube has denied previous rumours of a takeover and chief executive Chad Hurley said earlier this year that the company was not for sale and a future share flotation was possible.

A potential problem for YouTube and any buyer is that a great many users publish favourite music videos and film clips on the site, for which they have not gained the copyright approval.

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