Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo are all in the running to grab exclusive advertising rights on MySpace when the current deal expires next month.
News Corp, which owns the social networking site, has been discussing advertising deals with the trio for the past few weeks, but it's bargaining position has been weakened, WSJ.com reports.
The media giant is unlikely to match the $900 million (€714 million) Google paid for exclusive advertising rights in 2006, as MySpace has consistently failed to hit traffic and related targets set out in that contract.
News Corp paid $650 million for MySpace in 2005, but has since seen its subscriber-base dwindle due to competition from Facebook and other social networking sites.
Its unique visitors have declined nearly 13% from a year ago, and ad sales have fallen 21% compared to Facebook’s 39% growth, according to statistics from ComScore cited by the WSJ.