Facebook has acquired an Indian startup called Little Eye Labs that will help it gain better insights into how its site is used on Android devices.
The firm provides the ability to monitor activity on Android apps, which is key for Facebook to ensure it can provide detailed information for advertisers on how its huge user base behaves on the site.
Little Eye Labs confirmed the acquisition in a blog post, with staff at the firm moving to Facebook’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California.
“Little Eye Labs was founded about a year ago by a bunch of program analysis geeks who wanted to build better tools for mobile developers,” it said.
“We released our official version of Little Eye for Android in early April of this year, and since then we have had many Android developers and testers using Little Eye Labs to measure, analyse and optimise their app’s performance.”
No financial details of the deal were disclosed but it was rumoured to be around $10-15m. Little Eye Labs said current customers would be able to access a free version of the tool until 30 June.
Mobile use and advertising is one of the main features of success at Facebook over the past year or so, as its share price has rebounded strongly from an initial slump when it first hit the market.
However, Facebook’s demand for knowledge on how its users are behaving has landed it with more legal headaches, after two users sued the firm for allegedly scanning the contents of private messages on the site.
This article was originally published on V3.