Facebook’s rise to cyber-domination amounts to the biggest online success story of the 21st century thus far, and on Wednesday the social networking behemoth took it up another notch by filing for what could be the most massive Internet initial public offering ever, according to The New York Times.

The New York Times:

In its filing, Facebook, which has more than 845 million users worldwide, said it was seeking to raise $5 billion, according to a figure used to calculate the registration fee. The company will seek to have the ticker “FB” for its shares, but did not list an exchange.

But many close to the company say that Facebook is aiming for a far greater offering that could value it as high as $100 billion. At that lofty valuation, Facebook would be much bigger than many longer-established American companies, including Abbott Labs, Caterpillar, Kraft Foods, Goldman Sachs and Ford Motor.

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