By: Arthur Cooper
Submitted: 2011-05-16 11:02:52 | Word Count: 664
Sigh…now this is when the nature of competition takes the ugliest little turn. Facebook was caught red-handed attempting to release stories to discredit Google. This just makes me shake my head. News outlets went crazy today with stories of Facebook admitting to hiring a PR firm, Burson-Marsteller, to raise questions about Google™s privacy practices.
This debacle came about when blogger, Chris Soghoian, was to be helped by a rep from the firm to write a piece on Google™s services. The rep was even so kind as to offer to help to write the piece. Soghoian declined the offer and opted, instead, to publish some of the emails from the firm. This is when things got a fishy.
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In one of the emails, the Burson rep states “Google, as you know, has a well-known history of infringing on the privacy rights of America™s Internet users. Not a year has gone by since the founding of the company where it has not been the focus of front-page news detailing its zealous approach to gathering information " in many cases private and identifiable information " about online users.” The email goes on to refer to Google service as the “latest tool designed to scrape private data and build deeply personal dossiers on millions of users " in a direct and flagrant violation of its agreement with the FTC.”
When questioned about who was paying for this campaign, the Burson rep would not name their client. It was later that a Facebook rep confirmed to Dan Lyon of The Daily Beast that Burson was hired “First, because it believes Google is doing some things in social networking that raise privacy concerns; second, and perhaps more important, because Facebook resents Google™s attempts to use Facebook data in its own social-networking service.”
If you™ve been following this blog, I recently mentioned how Google is well on its way to taking the social networking arena by storm with its 1. It™s also implementing Social Circle, a network of social connections that Google uses to deliver relevant search results. In this same blog post, I offered a fair warning to Facebook and other social networks to take heed as they were well on their way to being weeded out. Well, it appears that Facebook took my warning to heart because they immediately sprung into action.
Listen, Facebook, my advice to take heeds simply meant to get creative and come up with something bigger and better. I certainly did not me sabotage (or try) and get caught. You went about this all wrong. This “plant a story” approach reveals so much about your insecurity, you have no idea. Afraid of a fair fight, are we?
Simply put, this just looks bad. You would have been much better off stating your concerns publicly, Facebook"this is no way to compete. Next time you™re scared, just say you™re scared and leave your bloggers at home.
