Facebook. Google. Two ginormous companies battling for internet power and domination. Last night on CNN’s Quest For Business, this sudden incident has been the talk of the town after the Microsoft-Skype deal.
Google’s Social Circle was the target of it’s adversary. A PR firm was desperate to offer a privacy blogger to write about a campaign against Google’s latest tool. It turns out the PR firm’s employer is none other than Facebook. In the interview, the blogger said that he was used to being asked to write good things about a company. He would’ve graciously let this pass yet something caught his attention. It’s when the PR firm offered that they are willing to write the story for him if he agree to publish it under his name. Suspicious, he said. They went that far to find someone to lend a name for them for their “smear campaign”.
A Facebook rep confirmed the allegations. In an article by The Daily Beast:
Confronted with evidence, a Facebook spokesman last night confirmed that Facebook hired Burson, citing two reasons: first, it believes Google is doing some things in social networking that raise privacy concerns; second, and perhaps more important, Facebook resents Google’s attempts to use Facebook data in its own social-networking service.
Like a Cold War spy case made public, the PR fiasco reveals—and ratchets up—the growing rivalry between Google and Facebook. Google, the search giant, views Facebook as a threat, and has been determined to fight back by launching a social-networking system of its own. So far, however, Google has not had much luck, but Facebook nonetheless felt it necessary to return fire—clandestinely.
A plan in action. A plan backfired. That’s what happened. Why do they have to compete and end up in this whole fiasco? They offer the best service there is in their own respective ways. If privacy is what they are concerned about as to who violates what, then I say you both meddle and spy into our own private lives on the internet.
No need to stain each other’s name. Facebook is Facebook. Google is Google.