The Daily Beast has uncovered a dirty plan of Facebook. According to the report , Facebook deliberately attempted to daub Google’s image . Surprisingly, Facebook tried to accuse Google on the ground of privacy issues when it itself has been subjected to criticisms from different sects for not offering users enough security. The story is seriously jaw-throbbing. The rivalry between Facebook and Google is quite well-known. Each party has been trying to outweigh the other in the social space . But, it seems Facebook does not believe that the ‘best one wins’ formula is applicable and so the social network went to hatch such a plot. Dan Lyon of the The Daily Beast informed that Facebook hired a public relation firm named Burson-Marsteller to smudge Google’s face . Lyon writes, “ For the past few days, a mystery has been unfolding in Silicon Valley. Somebody, it seems, hired Burson-Marsteller, a top public-relations firm, to pitch anti-Google stories to newspapers, urging them to investigate claims that Google was invading people’s privacy. Burson even offered to help an influential blogger write a Google-bashing op-ed, which it promised it could place in outlets like The Washington Post, Politico, and The Huffington Post .” The post on The Daily Beast goes on to read, “Even yesterday, when I asked flat out whether Facebook had been the client behind the campaign, a Burson spokesman refused to confirm it.” What Lyon went on to reveal, made the news even more intriguing. According to Lyon, the blogger Christopher Soghoian, whom Burson tried to bribe, refused the offer and published the email thread of his conversation with a representative of the PR company . In an interview with BetaBeat, Soghoian confirmed this by saying, “ Well I wasn’t the only one who got this pitch to write an op-ed about Google, a bunch of privacy advocates here in D.C. did… I get pitches on a daily basis, but it’s usually a company talking how great their product, so this one made me immediately suspicious, even more so when they wouldn’t reveal who the were working for .” PR firms mostly handle campaigns. Thus, it’s clear that Facebook wanted to initiate some kind of campaign to malign Google’s image. This report clears the air around the news which USA Today had published, accusing the PR company for conducting a whisper campaign for an unknown client. There’s a saying that every game relies upon some cheating . But there are degrees of cheat codes. When the opponent is Google, a PR campaign to outsmart that opponent isn’t a good idea. Facebook should have tried something different, something constructive, something more courageous. Since caught red-handed, Facebook can’t deny that they hired the PR firm to do their dirty job. However, they tried to bypass the issue by saying that they are suspicious that Google is doing something which could have benevolent effect on user’s privacy and secondly, Facebook doesn’t like Google’s attempt to use Facebook’s data for its own service. This is a vague answer. Whatever, suspicion Facebook may have, hiring a PR firm is not a solution to get rid of that. In an attempt to deface Google, Facebook has completely defaced itself. The social network was well know for its courage, but now it turns out to be nothing more than a coward. Being a Facebook fan for as long as I can remember, this is truly disturbing. I wouldn’t deny that Google is not doing something entirely saintly but, compared to the sleazy act of Facebook, that doesn’t really bother me now. Google, on the other hand, has the courage to take on its competitors and rip them apart in public — remember the incident where Google hit Bing where hit hurts most . Now, the highlight won’t be Google’s privacy issues as Facebook wanted but, it would be the scummy act that the social network has undergone. Burson-Marsteller has sent a statement to PRNewser clarifying this incident: Now that Facebook has come forward, we can confirm that we undertook an assignment for that client. The client requested that its name be withheld on the grounds that it was merely asking to bring publicly available information to light and such information could then be independently and easily replicated by any media. Any information brought to media attention raised fair questions, was in the public domain, and was in any event for the media to verify through independent sources. Whatever the rationale, this was not at all standard operating procedure and is against our policies, and the assignment on those terms should have been declined. When talking to the media, we need to adhere to strict standards of transparency about clients, and this incident underscores the absolute importance of that principle. The statement seems unnecessary yet perfectly suitable for the situation, coming from a PR company. It proves why Burson-Marsteller is amongst the best PR companies. Through the entire statement Burson-Marsteller has went on to show that it is not at fault and Facebook should be blamed for what has happened. If we set aside this scene and look at the incident from a businesses perspective, it only goes on to prove the incompetence that Burson-Marsteller has displayed. It could not carry out a simple task and is now blaming its client for providing the task, which they accepted and also tried to accomplish. It would not be surprising if after going through this users star doubting the authenticity of news which are published across different media outlets, even by us at WAT Blog. What Facebook and Burson-Marsteller is unacceptable and both are to be blamed. This morning, soon as we were about to publish this news, we received the information that Facebook has released a statement about their intended campaign: No ’smear’ campaign was authorized or intended . Instead, we wanted third parties to verify that people did not approve of the collection and use of information from their accounts on Facebook and other services for inclusion in Google Social Circles—just as Facebook did not approve of use or collection for this purpose. We engaged Burson-Marsteller to focus attention on this issue, using publicly available information that could be independently verified by any media organization or analyst. The issues are serious and we should have presented them in a serious and transparent way. You and your readers can look at the feature and decide if they have approved of this collection and use of information by clicking here when their Google account is open: http://www.google.com/s2/search/social . Of course, people who do not have Gmail accounts are still included in this collection but they have no way to view or control it. Like I mentioned earlier, there is no denying that Google is at fault but, it would have been better if Facebook could have used a more transparent medium to drive in its acquisitions. That would not have led to this fiasco. What’s you take on this? Do you think Facebook has done the right thing to stay ahead in the race? Looking For A Social Media Agency?? – Contact WATConsult – India’s Leading Social Media Agency Related Posts Google +1 Button For Websites Coming Soon! Microsoft Acquires Skype For $8.5 Billion; How Will This Affect The Tech World? 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