Online real-estate company Homestore has settled a contract dispute with America Online, and has signed a new 18-month marketing agreement with the Internet giant.
The settlement and the new deal solve some problems for both companies. Homestore has lost several executive team members in an accounting controversy that involved its deal with AOL. Meanwhile, AOL has been struggling with a declining advertising market.
As part of the deal announced Thursday, Homestore and AOL agreed to terminate an earlier marketing pact, which would have ended in July 2003. Homestore will pay AOL $7.5 million in cash and will let AOL draw on a $90 million line of credit secured by Homestore's balance sheet.
The two companies had been in arbitration over the earlier contract. The settlement also eliminates Homestore's responsibility to provide AOL with "make whole" payments worth around $57 million.
The new marketing deal, which runs through June 2004, makes Homestore the exclusive provider of real estate listings at AOL. AOL has also agreed to promote Homestore throughout its sites and integrate its services in a new real estate area on AOL. As part of the deal, Homestore will pay AOL $22.5 million over the life of the contract.
Separately this week, a former executive of Homestore agreed to plead guilty to one criminal count of securities fraud and settle a civil inside-trading charge brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Jeffrey Kalina, Homestore's former senior manager of mergers and acquisitions, was the fourth Homestore executive to enter a plea related to an ongoing investigation into allegations of overstated advertising revenue by Homestore.
Homestore operates such sites as Realtor.com, HomeBuilder.com and Homestore.com.
Join the conversation
Comment replyThe posting of advertisements, profanity, or personal attacks is prohibited. Click here to review our Terms of Use.
MIT creates a simulation to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Spacewar. A relic of the early days of minicomputers, it was one of the first computer video games and set the stage for many others, including Asteroids.
With Windows 8 now on a clearer path to release, expect the big device makers to try to crash the raucous Apple party with Microsoft leading the way. And who knows? Microsoft may even steer buyers away from a next-generation 9-inch Kindle Fire.
AstrologyDating.com is a new site that tries to find you your perfect love on the basis of birth date, birth time, and birthplace. But will it tell you the truth? Well, it asks you to pay only per match. So I tried it.
The Web fulminates when it is revealed that executives from VEVO--vehement music industry antipirates--played a pirated stream of an NFL playoff game at a party. VEVO claims it left its Wi-Fi unsupervised. Have we heard that argument before?
Tor's "obfsproxy" technology would make encrypted data look innocuous and let it dodge government censors. That could help citizens in Iran reach blocked sites as antigovernment protests reportedly loom.
iPhones and Angry Birds aside, the arcade endures. Crave pays a visit--and offers up an homage to games and gamers of years past and a tribute to the possibly endangered, but not yet dead, atmosphere of the arcade itself.
Join the conversation