• TechCrunch, Wednesday, April 11, 2007 10:45 AM

Photobucket, the photo and video storage site used by legions of MySpace and Facebook users, once prided itself on being the Web's No. 3 destination for online video, in addition to being its No. 1 destination for photos. Well, for now, Photobucket can't claim the latter, since News Corp. began blocking videos embedded from the storage site on MySpace.

Embedded Photobucket videos still work on MySpace profiles until users make edits to their profile. Then, the Photobucket links are replaced with a "..." or removed altogether. Irate MySpace users are worried these kinds of competitor clampdowns are turning into common practice from the bigwigs at News Corp. A few weeks ago, the social network started taking down embedded videos from the video-sharing site Revver. Vidilife, Imeem and Stickham embeds have also been completely banned. YouTube files can still be uploaded, however.

There's been no word from MySpace, which means the move could be temporary. In January, MySpace mysteriously shut down Flash widgets for two and half hours, claiming bugs needed to be smoothed out. The The shutdown comes suspiciously close to news that Photobucket is up for sale. Company CEO Alex Welch responded with an angry email that can be read on the site.

Read the whole story at TechCrunch »