• TechCrunch , Thursday, May 14, 2009 12 PM

Google's $900 million search advertising deal with News Corp. is set to expire a year from now, and has little chance of being renegotiated on similar terms, says Michael Arrington. That leaves MySpace, which accounts for most of the revenue generated from the deal, with little time to fill the gaping hole that will be left by the departure of Google's search advertising revenue.

Details of the existing deal have been kept confidential, but TechCrunch recently received a copy of both the original agreement as well as the amendment signed in 2007. According to the agreement, Google will pay News Corp. $300 million in the final year of the agreement, after paying out $300 million the year before.

Arrington notes that in order to guarantee payment, all MySpace has to do is make certain page view requirements. According to one source, "They've made those page view requirements easily...mostly by destroying the user experience." Indeed, any search on MySpace by default returns Google Web results, which may or may not be what the user is looking for. "MySpace has a history of monetizing their site to death, damn the user experience," Arrington says. "That may explain part of the rise of Facebook at their expense."

Google, meanwhile, has said it's unhappy with the deal, and the search giant certainly should be if click through on ads is as "abysmal" as Arrington says it is.

Read the whole story at TechCrunch »