I had almost forgot about this deal between Google and MySpace, a NewsCorp company. In 2006 the two entered into an agreement. Basically Google would get exclusive search advertising rights in exchange for $900 million over three years. MySpace also had to guarantee a minimum amount of traffic.

That was all three years ago and in the world of the internet, that is an eternity. Now things have changed. MySpace was one a thriving website, one of the best known. Today Facebook has taken the lead and MySpace is on a constant downward spiral.

That’s the deal and then there was this news last week:

MySpace, once the centerpiece of Rupert Murdoch’s digital strategy, has fallen “significantly” short of expectations and is jeopardising [sic] a critical $900m internet search agreement with Google.

Weaker traffic means the News Corp division is now expected to receive about $100m less from a deal that had underpinned investors’ confidence in the MySpace acquisition, executives revealed.

So because Murdoch’s company couldn’t live up to their end of the deal now he might be out some big bucks. Perhaps that is some motivation behind Murdoch singling out Google in his search engine rants. Murdoch is now saying that he will be pulling his content from Google in a matter of “months”. I don’t know why he wants to wait. Google has already stated he can do it now.