Yow. From the Journal, more as I get it.
Google will pay News Corp. at least $900 million to be the search provider on MySpace and other sites. The move — a blow to rival Yahoo — gives Google exclusive access to one of the most popular sites on the Internet, and follows Google’s $1 billion deal to provide searches on AOL.
No story I can find is up yet. I have pinged folks I know on all sides of this deal. Here’s the release.
Udpate: A Google conference call is in progress here.
Eric Schmidt and Ross Levinsohn are on it, am listening now. In short, Google has guaranteed minimum payments based on expected revenues from search placements on MySpace.
The deal is all cash, there are traffic assumptions that they feel “comfortable” with, the deal feathers back if traffic goals are not met. “Our history is that we agree to these structures, and then we do better because of our synergies,” says Schmidt.