Facebook Hired PR Firm to Bash Google

Friday, 13 May 2011 | by Pat's Picks

“In an unfolding tale of Silicon Valley skulduggery,” Facebook admitted yesterday that it had hired a PR firm to spread negative information about Google, reports the San Jose Mercury News this morning. Specifically, the social media giant admitted its plan to plant negative news stories and blog posts alleging a Google product infringed on the privacy of Facebook users. The covert campaign highlights how serious the battle for online ad dollars in getting between the two companies; sources say a “quarter of every Googler’s bonus this year reportedly will be based on how well the search company does in the social realm.”

Facebook’s “whisper campaign” began to unravel after a USA Today story on Tuesday about how consultants from the PR firm Burson-Marsteller approached “top-tier media companies and high-profile technologists, on behalf of an unnamed client, to seed largely unfounded allegations about privacy shortcomings in Google’s Social Circle service.” A blogger for the Daily Beast then connected the dots, releasing the news yesterday that the unnamed client was in fact Facebook.