News Corp is bolstering its newly-formed internet unit by spending $580m on Intermix - the company behind blog site myspace.com.

Intermix owns and runs about 40 websites but current best performer is myspace.com. Myspace is a blogging and networking site. It brought in 15.6m viewers in May, according to comscore Media Metrix. The site is growing very fast - in February it had nine million visitors.

The sites will be included in Fox's Interactive Media unit. Murdoch hopes it will double visitors to his web properties to 45m unique monthly visitors.

Intermix was in the news recently for all the wrong reasons - accused of dodgy distribution of adware.

Last month New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer accused it of infecting people's computers with adware programs without informing them. Some programs installed toolbars or special searches or served pop-up ads onto people's machines. The company agreed to pay $7.5m over three years and promised not to distribute any such software again. ®

Related stories

Intermix offers NY's Spitzer $7.5m to settle adware suit
New York sues Intermix over spyware
Gates: PC will replace TV, TV will become a giant Google
BSkyB sues EDS for breach of contract