By Ginnia Cheng
The score is in: Google 1 – 0 Facebook.
In a scandalous turn of events, it’s been reported that Facebook hired top PR firm Burson-Marsteller to launch a smear campaign against its bitter tech rival Google. Leaked emails, which came to light on Wednesday, indicated that the global PR agency contacted well known internet security blogger Christopher Soghoian (among others), asking him to write scaremongering stories about Google’s privacy policies.
In exchange, Burson-Marsteller offered to assist in the drafting and placing of these articles on influential sites, such as USA Today and the Washington Post – but Facebook’s cover was blown when Soghoian then published the emails online. The correspondence also highlighted the blogger’s view that the company was in fact exaggerating concerns over the privacy threats and ‘making a mountain out of a molehill’.
Fortunately for Google, this has all come to light just before the expected launch of its own social network, Social Circles, at its developer conference which kicked off earlier this week. As a result, the anticipation and buzz surrounding Google’s latest venture in the social networking arena has reached an all-time high.
This spat follows a string of various accusations that large tech players have been throwing at each other, ranging from Google accusing Microsoft’s Bing of copying its search results, to Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs apparently accusing Google’s Android of privacy violations when the iPhone was under fire for privacy issues.
This latest instalment is far from good PR for the tech PR sector, and as the rivalry between the giants continues to grow, we can only hope that the tactics they employ don’t get much dirtier than this.
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