Murdoch's Fox snaffles online ad specialist

Fox Interactive Media (FIM), a division of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, has acquired advertising-technology company Strategic Data Corp (SDC).

The terms of the acquisition were not disclosed but FIM said in a statement that SDC's proprietary technology will enable the company to serve its online network, which includes the sites of MySpace.com, Fox's American Idol and IGN Entertainment's AskMen.com, with targeted graphical advertising on its web pages.

Last August, Google made a $900m deal with FIM for the exclusive rights to supply MySpace, which has more than 100 million users, and other FIM sites with text-based search ads and sponsored links.

The SDC acquisition will not have any impact on that previous advertising deal, said a spokesman for FIM.

He said: "The Google deal will continue, and we are happy to continue our relationship with them. The Google deal is based on text-based search advertising, while SDC's tech is focused on graphical performance-based optimising."

The SDC acquisition is the first major acquisition FIM has completed since Peter Levinsohn joined FIM as president in December. Peter Levinsohn replaced his cousin Ross Levinsohn, who announced his departure from FIM on his MySpace page.

Candace Lombardi writes for CNET News.com