Nokia is in talks to integrate Facebook’s social networking functionality into its handsets, reports the Wall Street Journal. According to sources familiar with the matter, the world’s largest handset vendor is looking at a number of ways to integrate the service, including combining Facebook contact information with the phone’s own address book. Such a tie-up would allow users to see if their Facebook friends were logged on, send them messages and post comments on their profile pages, directly from the phone. Talks between the two companies have been ongoing for “months,” the report says, though Nokia is still reportedly unsure whether to team up with an established social network such as Facebook, or build its own social network from scratch. Privacy concerns – most notably how much information about the mobile user Facebook would be allowed access to – are also considered an issue.

A Facebook spokeswoman told the Wall Street Journal that the company is “dedicated to working with and developing partnerships with mobile operators and device makers all over the world.” It is reportedly in talks with a number of Nokia’s rival handset vendors, including Palm and Motorola, and has also built popular software applications for the BlackBerry and Apple iPhone that optimise the service for mobile use. The report adds that a minor announcement concerning collaboration between Nokia and Facebook could be made at next week’s GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, but the two firms are not expected to have completed talks over the deeper handset partnership by this stage.