• NY Times, Tuesday, January 3, 2006 10:38 AM

Rupert Murdoch is finding out the hard way that when it comes to running a user- generated content site, you shouldn't mess with your customers. Earlier this month, MySpace users began to notice that any references at all to YouTube, a video sharing site and News Corp. competitor, were being deleted almost as soon as they came up, replaced by a patch of white space. One angry user wrote to a Web log community news site: "They are not admitting to it, and are trying to do this in secret." Soon, many MySpace users started blogging about it on other sites, and the problem was apparently quickly fixed. News Corp. refused to comment in the New York Times story, but YouTube went on the record as saying it was a simple misunderstanding that was soon fixed. But this is what happens to big corporations who move in and try to control things on the Internet: it's next to impossible to control anything on the Web--a piece of information, a brand name--once consumers are used to having access to it. Users will talk about would-be controlling company, start a bit of a movement and then just go elsewhere if all else fails.

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