Myspace purchase a scandal?
I recently came across this article about how the purchase of myspace was a scandal. While I really have no idea and am suprised nearly two years later this is surfacing, its no suprise! Myspace has turned into a giant! Who wouldnt be looking for a couple extra BILLION???
MySpace Merger Challenge Dismissed
By Ed Oswald, BetaNews
October 9, 2006, 1:59 PM
The forces aligned behind overturning News Corp.'s 2005 purchase of MySpace suffered a blow Monday, as a Los Angeles Superior Court dismissed challenges to the merger. But News Corp. must still fight a federal case against the company.
Brad Greenspan, founder and former CEO of Intermix, the company that News Corp. bought out last year to purchase MySpace, has spearheaded the challenges. He and his supporters have set up FreeMySpace.com, a site where he argues the deal was one of "the largest merger and acquisition scandals in U.S. history."
Greenspan claims the parties involved hid the true value of MySpace in order to allow News Corp. to purchase it at a low price. According to "The MySpace Report," posted on that site, the true value of MySpace should be around $20 billion.
However, Superior Court Judge Carolyn B. Kuhl disagreed with Greenspan's position, ruling the merger was lawful and had been approved by a majority of Intermix shareholders. Additionally, she rejected the plantiff's claims of withheld information.
"I have exercised great restraint in not responding to Mr. Greenspan's baseless and defamatory claims about the propriety of the News Corp. acquisition and my role in the transaction, with the expectation of being vindicated by a court of law," he said.
"Lost in all the rhetoric is that we delivered to the shareholders, including Mr. Greenspan, a nearly 700% increase in stock price," Rosenblatt continued.
Greenspan had no public comment on the ruling as of press time.
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Brad Greenspan, the man who helped launch MySpace in 2003 but left to start a new company, has launched a legal campaign against the site's owner, News Corp, alleging "anti-competitive behaviour".
The suit was filed last week with the Federal District Court in Los Angeles, and alleges that MySpace has broken antitrust laws by censoring competitor services.
Greenspan's new company, LiveUniverse, owns a number of internet properties, including social networking site Stickam.com and YouTube competitor Vidilife.com. He alleges that MySpace blocks users from even mentioning Stickam.com and Vidilife.com in their profiles.
He says that "any attempts by users to type the url of sites like 'stickam.com' or 'vidilife.com' into a [MySpace] blog or profile [are replaced] with '......' ".
He also claims that MySpace has previously imposed the same "censorship" on other video sharing sites such as YouTube and Revver, but stopped this after a revolt from its users. However, the censoring of Vidilife.com and Stickam.com remains.
"When we started Myspace in 2003, we empowered users by giving them full control over their profile pages," Greenspan said.
"News Corp's moves to destroy and limit the freedom MySpace users have enjoyed is analogous to the strategies a dictator would employ after seizing control of a previously free nation."
Greenspan believes that this sort of censorship is just the beginning and could have dire consequences.
"If News Corp is able to continue its censorship and mass gagging techniques today, then tomorrow it should surprise no one when News Corp deletes mentions of competitive news organizations to their own Fox News by preventing users from typing CNN.com or ABCNEWS.com in their Myspace blogs."
MySpace is a social networking giant that's become a hit among under 30s, boasting more than 126 million profiles and growth of more than 200,000 new registrations a day. It was created by a company called Intermix, which was sold to Rupert Murdoch's News Corp in September last year for $US580 million.
Greenspan alleges that MySpace has blocked its users from mentioning his services in their profiles out of revenge for previous allegations he's made.
But Fox Interactive Media, which manages News Corp's web assets, insists that vidilife.com was blocked because its members were using the service to publish copyright-infringing content on their pages.
"MySpace generally blocks links to websites for three reasons: adult content, copyright infringement, and security risks," the company said in a statement.
Posted by: MINDTRICK | November 8, 2006 03:17 PM