Brad Greenspan, founder of former MySpace parent company Intermix Media Inc., Thursday asked the federal authorities to investigate the company's $580 million acquisition by News Corp.
In a report posted at the site www.freemyspace.com, he claims that MySpace is actually worth somewhere around $20 billion--or around 35 times what News Corp. paid for the company. "News Corp.'s
market valuation has increased by approximately $12 billion dollars since the transaction occurred less than a year ago," states the report. "As a publicly traded company, Myspace would likely command
an even greater valuation which was the path Myspace was going down for the benefit of Intermix shareholders and Myspace users in the early summer of 2005."
Greenspan is asking that News Corp.'s
purchase of MySpace be undone and MySpace restored as "an independent online network owned by the public." In addition, he's asking that Intermix shareholders be compensated.
The report is the
latest attack Greenspan has mounted on the deal. Last September, he unsuccessfully tried to derail the deal by
offering shareholders $13.50 a share for Intermix. The $580 million paid by News Corp. came to $12 a share.
Shortly before News Corp. agreed to purchase Intermix, New York State Attorney General
Eliot Spitzer sued the company for allegedly surreptitiously installing adware and burying notice of its downloadable adware programs in the fine print of its end-user license agreement. In June 2005,
the company settled the charges by agreeing to pay a $7.5 million fine, and to permanently stop
distributing adware programs.
Greenspan last October agreed to pay
$750,000 to settle the adware charges brought by Spitzer.