

PR firm pushing anti-Google message for undisclosed client - tytso
http://pastebin.com/zaeTeJeJ

======
raganwald
Seems like a good time to revist Paul's essay "The Submarine:"

 _PR is not dishonest. Not quite. In fact, the reason the best PR firms are so
effective is precisely that they aren't dishonest. They give reporters
genuinely valuable information. A good PR firm won't bug reporters just
because the client tells them to; they've worked hard to build their
credibility with reporters, and they don't want to destroy it by feeding them
mere propaganda._

 _If anyone is dishonest, it's the reporters. The main reason PR firms exist
is that reporters are lazy. Or, to put it more nicely, overworked. Really they
ought to be out there digging up stories for themselves. But it's so tempting
to sit in their offices and let PR firms bring the stories to them. After all,
they know good PR firms won't lie to them._

 _A good flatterer doesn't lie, but tells his victim selective truths (what a
nice color your eyes are). Good PR firms use the same strategy: they give
reporters stories that are true, but whose truth favors their clients._

<http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html>

~~~
cglee
Selective truth != truth. I'd say selectively presenting one side is
dishonest. I don't have anything against companies who are dishonest, but
let's call a spade a spade: PR companies are spin doctors. They're dishonest.
That's not quite straight out lying, but to me the very definition of
dishonesty is not presenting all of the truth if you can.

~~~
lsc
>I'd say selectively presenting one side is dishonest.

do you vote with your dollars in this regard?

If there was a bigger PR penalty for not revealing unpleasant truths and maybe
more support for a company that does reveal unpleasant truths about itself,
more companies would be more open.

~~~
truthtechnician
Whether he votes with his dollars or not is irrelevant to the fact that
selectively presenting the truth to influence people is dishonest.

~~~
lsc
right, but it has everything do do with the profitability of honesty.

------
msredmond
This is pretty standard -- get anti-Google (and Microsoft, and Apple) pitches
all the time. About the only thing that isn't standard is the fact that the PR
firm won't say who their client is. That pretty much never happens (at least
to me). So the fact that they won't say who it is makes it kinda interesting,
but it could just be some nutjob somewhere who decided to spend his money on
hiring a PR firm.

~~~
ma2rten
Was it you ms-redmond ?

~~~
msredmond
;-)

Nah, I'm a journalist, on the receiving end (and also, being a journalist,
poor).

------
shrikant
John Mercurio is the the Director of the Media practice in Burson-Marsteller
and more interestingly, _"a leading political expert on national politics,
campaigns and Capitol Hill"_

[http://www.burson-
marsteller.com/newsroom/lists/PressRelease...](http://www.burson-
marsteller.com/newsroom/lists/PressReleases/DispForm.aspx?ID=759)

------
oinksoft
Google crawls publicly available data and uses it -- scandal! This is getting
old, but it seems like some people still need a reminder: If you submit
information about yourself that you know will be publicly viewable, you have
no right at all to anger. I think that some people truly still do not
understand how the internet works, and think that login page == walled garden
privacy.

------
tensafefrogs
related: "Google deflects PR firm's attack of Gmail privacy"
<http://www.usatoday.com/money/media/2011-05-06-google_n.htm>

~~~
recoiledsnake
From that article:

>The service also privately sends each Gmail user the names of "secondary
connections," a listing of the people each direct connection happens to be
following publicly on the Web.

So it will show me the friends of my friends? What is this obsession with
degrading privacy in this way? Didn't Google learn lessons from the way Buzz
exposed your friends to other friends? Why can't email and chat be just that?
If I want social networking I will use a social networking site.

If this continues, I will look at making another email service my primary
email.

~~~
haberman
It's only showing you information that is already public (the people your
friends are _publicly_ following).

~~~
recoiledsnake
Still, Google needn't make it easy by aggregating it and presenting
information about me to my friends.

------
aresant
"Caught" seems like a funny word to use.

They pretty clearly lay out a case that this is an interesting story, and
all's fair in love and PR.

In fact the email they're sending seems relatively benign compared to what I
expected to see.

And the juiciest part of the story - who's paying the PR person - is missing.

Wondering why this wound up @ the top of HN as a result?

EDIT - Slightly more interesting (err, predictable) if MSFT is the culprit?
[http://www.catchingflack.com/2007/09/burson-marsteller-
outed...](http://www.catchingflack.com/2007/09/burson-marsteller-outed-as-
microsofts-sock-puppet/)

~~~
recoiledsnake
More likely to be Facebook, since Social Circles seems to be directly
competing with them, not Microsoft.

~~~
warfangle
Which is kind of funny, comparing GOOG's privacy with Facebook's privacy.

~~~
epistasis
Google has far more sensitive information on me than Facebook. Facebook only
has publicly facing information, stuff that you've already shared with other
people.

Google has my searches, and what I've clicked on. And good luck trying to get
them to forget those logs.

~~~
praptak
_"Facebook only has publicly facing information, stuff that you've already
shared with other people."_

Ummm, and maybe every site you ever visited whose owners display those funny
"like" buttons.

~~~
epistasis
The "like" button is for publicly sharing your interest in a web page.

And for tracking where I've been, Facebook is no worse than any other ad
agency; that they show me that they're tracking me is no worse than
DoubleClick's or Google Ads' tracking.

~~~
Natsu
Facebook has a lot more than you're giving them credit for.

You're only counting data given to them directly, as if the things you tell
Facebook are the only things there. They also have a lot of data based on what
they infer from your behavior. The most visible aspect of that would be when
they recommend people for you to friend.

And then there's all the data other people give them about you. Oh, sure, you
can untag the photos or whatever, but who knows if Facebook really forgets? I
can just imagine the uprising if Facebook ever sorted through all the photos
where the tag was removed, compared them to the tagged photos to make sure it
was the right person, then started selling "X's Embarrassing Photo Collection"
or something. No, they'd never do that for obvious reasons, but they still
have that kind of data.

What I'm trying to say is that they have more information than you realize.
I'm not saying that they will or won't do anything bad with it, just that they
have it. So whether you care or not depends on how much you trust them.

For the record, Google has plenty of data, too. I personally trust Google a
bit more than most companies, but that's just my opinion and it could always
change.

~~~
epistasis
That's kind of patronizing, of course I know that Facebook has all that
information. (And though I'm annoyed at the moment, thanks for engaging me,
this is an interesting discussion)

You're still missing the point: when information is put into Facebook by me or
others, the intent is to share it with others. Facebook is not a vehicle to do
things in private, the entire purpose of it is to share with others, whether
that be your list of connections, your photos, how much time you waste on
Farmville, or how frequently you communicate with Aunt Tilly.

Facebook is the anti-privacy, it's a public space, a place to get things out
in the open. There's nothing private at all about Facebook, and that's the
_entire_ point of it. It's what Tim Berners-Lee envisioned the web to be, and
what it would have been had he been able to put useable authoring tools into
the hands of the masses, instead of HTML being limited to the benighted few
that can afford the time investment to learning it and working with a web
server.

Google, on the other hand, pretends to be an ISP with implicit promise of
privacy, but will exploit the fuck out of your private email recipient list
just to try to do what Facebook is doing. Google's core business is the same
as Facebook's, advertising, but Facebook goes about gathering data about you
in a far more transparent and clear manner than Google.

When somebody gives all that juicy personal information to Facebook, they're
doing it with the intent to share and are making it public of their own
volition for their personal social benefit. When somebody gives personal
information to Google, they're not giving their search terms to Google in
order to share search terms, they're doing it get something else in exchange,
but may very well wish they could keep that juicy personal information
completely private.

IMHO, trusting Google more than Facebook or Microsoft or Apple is extremely
foolhardy, and a testament to how far a catchy slogan can go on the PR front.
It doesn't matter how well-intentioned the people at the top of Google are,
failures to adhere to policy will happen, and the Buzz incident is just how
flagrantly Google will fail at "not being evil" when they're desperate.

I should note that my Facebook account sits idle because of my paranoia about
it. But at least everything Facebook has, I wanted to be public. Google has me
by the balls.

------
asknemo
I am very surprised this is the first time someone try to get everyone's
attention on this practice (if that's the intention of the poster/submitter).
It's quite easy to spot recently there are well-timed attacks on Google or
Android which are oddly fueled with passion. I suppose any money spent on this
(which should be significant) would be way better used if it's used to improve
whatever product the client have in competition with Google, really. End
users, ultimately, won't benefit from these.

------
IanDrake
Just from the standpoint of better understanding the value of PR firms makes
me glad I read this.

------
alecco
Related

True Enough - The second age of PR
<http://www.cjr.org/feature/true_enough.php>

------
brudgers
In other news, undisclosed client employs Chiat\Day to push anti-Microsoft
message over a period of one decade.

------
itg
Don't see how this is a "scandal" of any kind. These tactics aren't uncommon.

~~~
RexRollman
That doesn't make it right.

~~~
ltamake
But it's nothing new. :P

~~~
bellaire
Scandals rarely are. Someone gives or receives money, favors, or information
inappropriately. It's the perceived degree of impropriety that makes something
scandalous, not how commonly it occurs.

That said, this one does seem pretty tame.

------
dsl
I don't care who is slinging the mud, but I do agree with the message.

Where in the hell do I opt-out of "Social Circle"?

------
meric
[http://www.smh.com.au/technology/security/facebook-
exposed-u...](http://www.smh.com.au/technology/security/facebook-exposed-user-
data-to-advertisers-security-firm-20110511-1ehy1.html)

Counter-PR?

------
Husafan
Perhaps this guy's promoting his book:

[http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/may/9/e-totalitaria...](http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/may/9/e-totalitarianism-
at-google/)

------
nviennot
Ho... now it makes sense.. <http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/12/swallowing-puke/>

------
yanw
I'm glad that this sample is available, there were always the rumors about
another big PR firm 'Edelman' hired for this sort of thing, the subject isn't
always privacy they are also beating the antitrust drum, Google spokesman in
DC called it then an 'Anti-Google industry complex'.

------
hackermom
In other news, Google fanboy is caught pointing fingers on people disliking
Google.

~~~
tshtf
Do you even know who Christopher Soghoian is?

