
Facebook Loses Much Face In Secret Smear On Google - linuxnow
http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/12/facebook-loses-much-face-in-secret-smear-on-google/
======
JacobAldridge
A key saying I provide all my clients with in regards to corporate culture and
behaviours: a fish rots from the head.

Usually this means things like 'if the boss is ten minutes late to every
meeting, staff will assume it's acceptable for everyone to be ten minutes late
to a meeting'.

Given Zuckerbeg's reputation for sneaky behaviour and this example of his PR
team, I now have an excellent example to share in the future: 'If the boss
uses sneaky, underhanded and/or arrogant methods to launch 'his' business,
staff will assume it's acceptable for them to use sneaky underhanded and/or
arrogant methods to promote it'.

~~~
bostonpete
> I now have an excellent example to share in the future

Your comment intuitively seems correct, and I'm inclined to agree with you.
But I can't help but wonder if you just end up picking examples that support
this claim. Most examples of corporate wrong-doing probably can't be
correlated with traits of their CEO (they're just mistakes made by inept, or
possibly malicious, individuals or groups).

Statistically, some percentage of corporate wrong-doing _will_ correlate to
some event in the CEO's past. I'm not sure that necessarily means that we can
point to those cases as proof that a fish rots from the head.

~~~
zmmz
Saying that the "head" has to be the CEO is taking it too far.

In most large companies, you are only aware of the behaviour of the two levels
of management above you. If you see your boss or your bosses boss behave in a
certain way, you will think that this behaviour is acceptable.

For example, the CEO of some bank might be very long-term, risk free,
investement oriented, but if the boss of the trading desk only cares about the
next paycheck and is willing to take risks to get his bonus, chances are all
the traders will do whatever it takes to get good results without more than a
year ahead.

~~~
pstack
That actually seems counter-intuitive, to me.

I work in a company of about 140k people and I'm far more aware of the CEO
than I am my boss or his boss. I don't even know who my boss' boss is or what
he does, but I hear about the CEO on a regular basis (beyond just showing up
in movies). It seems to me that in a large company, you're aware of your boss
and the figureheads and everywhere in-between those two levels are given the
gift of obfuscation.

~~~
fudged71
I can't help myself trying to figure out what 140K-employee company has a
moviestar CEO. Nevermind.

~~~
amjith
Oracle.

------
plinkplonk
I wonder what the ex googlers who moved to FaceBook think of such slimy
tactics. Might be interesting to hear the perspective of someone who moved
from a company that (at least) professes an adherence to "Don't be evil" to a
company that apparently has no problems with jumping into the slime. If I
worked for Facebook, I'd be ashamed of my employer today (and would probably
protest and then get fired!).

And, as someone said above, _Facebook_ professing a concern for abuse of
privacy is a bit much to swallow.

~~~
tytso
It's not like this is the first evil thing Facebook has done.... there might
be some who might argue that yanking around Facebook's defaults about users'
privacy settings was far worse than using a PR sock puppet.

Personally, I think using (or perhaps we should say, trying to use) a PR sock
puppet was cowardly, and trying to bash a competing product by spreading
anonymous innuendoes was crass. But not all would agree with me. Some might
even say that anything which is not illegal, is OK in our capitalistic
society. And as far as I know, no laws were broken. That being said, I am _so_
glad I don't work at Facebook.

~~~
vacri
Just because something is legal doesn't forbid you from thinking it's cowardly
or crass. Facebook are free to do distasteful things, but - and here's the
important part - we are free to condemn them for doing so. Forbidding us from
sharing our opinions because "hey, it's legal" is a self-defeating argument.

~~~
ortusdux
To take this to the extreme, bestiality was legal in Florida up until this
week.

~~~
doki_pen
My old friend Pig-Fucker, from Deltona, FL, must be very sad.

------
grovulent
Good ol' Arrington... he's got the courage to call em out. To really stick it
to the big guys. It takes guts to say "No More!" to the corrupt and the
wicked, even when such a stance might cost you personally.

I was going to comment as such on his blog...

...but I don't have a facebook account. ;)

~~~
sunchild
Wait a minute – this story broke on a blog, and then got picked up by the
Daily Beast, and then by Arrington. I guess you could give Arrington credit
for spreading this story to his audience, but he doesn't deserve credit for
calling Facebook out in the first place.

~~~
lotusleaf1987
I think your sarcasm meter may need some tuning. ;)

~~~
sunchild
HN comments are usually so earnest, that I turn my sarcasm meter off here. It
goes back on as soon as I leave. ;)

------
klochner
Kudos to Christopher Soghoian[1] for releasing the email[2] instead of
accepting the offer for cash + high-profile smear publication.

It makes you wonder about the existing op-eds slamming social circles[3,4,5]

    
    
       [1] http://www.dubfire.net/
       [2] http://pastebin.com/zaeTeJeJ
       [3] http://www.switched.com/2010/08/09/google-shows-off-how-well-it-knows-your-social-circle/
       [4] http://marketing.about.com/b/2011/03/31/google-wants-you-to-1.htm
       [5] http://librarianbyday.net/2010/03/30/googles-social-circle-social-search-may-not-violate-any-privacy-laws-but-it-gives-me-the-creeps/

~~~
erikpukinskis
Shit, it was Christopher Soghoian? Whoever thought that he would participate
in a pay-for-editorial job should be fired. Actually, they have almost
certainly already been fired. He's practically built a career on exposing
corporate bullshit. If they bothered to read his wikipedia page, they'd note
that he has a history of releasing private corporate correspondance that is
sent to him: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Soghoian>

~~~
phlux
Wouldn't it be sweet if they _did_ know about his reputation and specifically
sent this to him so that Facebook _would_ be found out.

Cool - this idea is being downvoted, maybe you misunderstood my point? If an
employee of facebook specifically sought to submit this to this particular
reporter knowing that it may result in exposure of this plan to the world...

I hate being downvoted without an explanation. What is wrong with this idea?

~~~
sesqu
The mail wasn't sent by a Facebook employee, it was sent by a PR firm. You
know, someone who, by definition, would not do that.

~~~
phlux
You are correct, though the scenario could still be true in that the PR firm
could feign naivete in knowing that the reporter would do this, if so - then
brilliant play...

~~~
merraksh
But hasn't the PR firm lost their face too? If the PR had an intent (expose
FB's tactics), I wonder if they could have done it differently.

------
brown9-2
From the Daily Beast article:

 _First, because it believes Google is doing some things in social networking
that raise privacy concerns; second, and perhaps more important, because
Facebook resents Google’s attempts to use Facebook data in its own social-
networking service._

So, just to get this straight: Facebook resents that Google use's "Facebook
data" in Social Circles, when I as the user have to explicitly allow Google to
import my Facebook connections? Shouldn't the user get a say in how their data
is used and who uses it?

~~~
kmavm
Actually, you don't explicitly allow Google to import the data. Google does
the following:

a) scrape Facebook.com; b) notice that someone named "Roderick Evans" on
Facebook is friends with someone named "Danielle Benson" on Facebook; c)
notice that someone named Roderick Evans' GMail account has someone named
Danielle Benson in his contacts; d) they're done. Your permission is not part
of the process.

Your Facebook identity is now associated with your Google profile, and your
Google profile gets associated connecting edges, without your permission or
notice. If by some miracle you swing by your Google profile, and you notice
that your Quora/Twitter/MySpace/Facebook accounts have all suddenly been
connected, you can sever them, but I received no notice of the connection
beforehand.

At least, that was how it worked for me before I deleted my Google profile.
It's described in more flowery terms here:
[http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/answer.py?answer...](http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/answer.py?answer=1142745)

~~~
brown9-2
Doesn't the Facebook user need to allow their connections to be publicly
accessed via the Graph API in order for it to be scrape-able in the first
place?

The main point here is that Google isn't doing anything with the "Facebook
data" that the original user of that data (who actually owns it, let's be fair
about that) hasn't approved of in one way or another.

~~~
rryan
Not sure about the Graph API, but your name, your profile picture, and your
contact list are all fully public information and you can't control their
visibility.

~~~
brown9-2
Are you sure about that? How does one access this info?

If I go to
[http://graph.facebook.com/<myusername>](http://graph.facebook.com/<myusername>),
the only data that is visible is:

    
    
      {
        "id": "...",
        "name": "...",
        "first_name": "...",
        "last_name": "...",
        "username": "...",
        "gender": "male",
        "locale": "en_US"
      }

~~~
michaelfairley
<https://graph.facebook.com/michaelfairley/picture?type=large> for the
picture.

Friends can be accessed similarly, but require an access token (_any_ access
token, not just the user's that you're inspecting.

More details at Facebook's API docs:
<https://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/api/user/>

~~~
fudged71
Wow. I am shocked that information I explicitly block to users (such as
profile picture) are publicly available through a simple URL trick.

------
jonnathanson
Color me perplexed by Facebook's move here. Not only is the blowback from this
effort bad PR, but I fail to see what FB stood to gain from this in the first
place. Generating a bunch of bad publicity and calling attention to Google's
alleged invasions of privacy is just going to bring scrutiny down upon FB
eventually -- regardless of whether or not this plot ever came to light.

I mean, did they think it would be a tremendous leap of the imagination for
the court of public opinion and/or regulators to ask themselves "Hey, so
Google is sketchy on user data...hmm...I wonder what other company might have
a boatload of such data?"

~~~
pstack
For there to be negative-PR blowback on this, the user-base will have to pull
their heads out of their asses and stop playing FarmVille for five minutes.
Even then, chances are they'll shrug and go back to harvesting self-esteem
from their facebook "friends".

~~~
jonnathanson
I think Farmville reveals a lot about the human condition. I'm totally
serious. What it basically tells us is that, if left to their own devices,
most people will just waste whatever time they've got. If Facebook or
Farmville weren't around, it would be something else. Remember annoying email
mass-forwards from your relatives and their friends? That's the kind of stuff
that's no longer plaguing us _because Farmville is keeping those folks
occupied_. And for that, in a strange and perverse way, I'm thankful for its
existence.

~~~
nollidge
For me, those annoying mass-forwards have just moved to Facebook. "Repost this
on your wall if you hate cancer!" Ugh.

~~~
nooneelse
They have also moved to text messages. It is rather amusing seeing the
necessary mechanics of that type of meme distilled down to so few characters.
No room to waste buttering up your emotions. No, they get right down to things
like "Fwd to 10 people or BAD LUCK is on you tonight!"

------
bad_user
Wow, just wow!

I wonder how employees feel about it - is it just business as usual? For that
matter, I wonder how would-be investors feel about it.

Google defeated competition from Microsoft and Yahoo with innovation and hard
work, not with slimy tactics. They dazzled the world by being open,
provocative, fast and effective, forward-thinking, pushing web apps to their
limits, giving customers what they wanted.

Is this it? Is Facebook the next Google? How depressing.

~~~
bluedanieru
Facebook is the next, I don't know, Oracle probably. Google is the next
Google.

~~~
RexRollman
It's funny you say that, because if there are two tech companies I despise, it
is Oracle and Facebook.

------
franze
this should be the up-voted article
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2539932> not that - non informative -
opinion piece from techcrunch.

------
joshes
I think this will smack of the Streisand Effect
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect>) over time. Facebook trying
to call attention to privacy concerns over Google will, inevitably, as this
piece exemplifies, call attention to their own privacy concerns. And the
stigma of this hypocritical stance will also call attention to the overall
maturity and sensibility of Facebook, as well.

Then again, the kind of people who are most likely to be affected by this
entire affair are also the kind of people who already know this information
about both companies. So maybe this will have little overall effect?

------
ericdschmidt
I don't think what Facebook did was unethical. It's certainly legal. They
catch a lot of flack over privacy issues and they want to remind the media
about their competitors' privacy issues and influence them to cover those
more, so that they don't look as bad in comparison. That sort of work is done
by PR firms, so they hired one to do it. In fact, they may not have even asked
the PR firm to do it; the PR firm may have acted independently as part of
their service.

As for the PR firm's offering to help write an article... Well, I would call
it bad/unethical journalism if such an article were published as reporting. If
it were published on some opinion page or like a tech blog, that would be
fine.

~~~
eggoa
I agree. Supposedly part of what they were doing was "urging [news
organizations] to investigate claims that Google was invading people’s
privacy." With a company as big and powerful as Google, there should always be
people looking at this. If it happens to a reporter persuaded by a PR firm
paid by a competitor, I don't we why that is necessarily a problem.

------
mrchess
Not sure what the big deal is here. Big companies run negative PR campaigns
against other companies ALL the time -- running negative PR campaigns is a
very common strategy in the large market. But I supposed they usually run try
to run them in secret, so it is a bit unfortunate that they got caught.

If anything an article like this makes me lose face for techcrunch, who acts
like this kind of PR tactic has never happened before.

If you don't believe me read Toxic Sludge, which is a book about the PR
industry.

~~~
smackfu
It also makes you wonder when you are reading this story somewhere if Google
has their PR agency running it as a negative PR campaign against Facebook.

~~~
rwaliany
I guarantee you that Google is running it as a negative PR campaign against
Facebook. There's no way someone would sabotage their relationship with
Facebook when they're paying the bills.

------
codeup
Don't know what will come out of this but good that Chris Soghoian published
the email exchange.

------
code_duck
I'm so surprised! I always considered Facebook really honest, upright and
trustworthy - a reflection of their founder.

------
rglover
When I hear "Facebook," I immediately think of Zuckerberg. I'm guessing a lot
of the reporters out there are making the same correlation. I wonder, though,
is this something he knew about (or, rather, did he know about a PR campaign
but not of this nature)? It seems a bit out of character for a guy who has
been portrayed as being a very calm and calculated person. I wonder if this
was just a bit of activity in the PR room that didn't get to the top before it
was released...

------
guelo
PR types are always dancing on the shadiness line. Sometimes I get suspicious
about the comments on HN when negative stories about certain companies come
out.

------
yalogin
The only chink in Google's armor is privacy so facebook had no other option.
But as the saying goes - The sun cannot call the stove hot.

~~~
sid0
That's an interesting variation of the saying. If you don't mind my asking, is
that translated from a different language, and if so, what language?

~~~
yalogin
I made it up :)

Kettle calling the pot black did not have enough impact for this context for
me.

------
rakkhi
Does this mean that they are actually worried about whatever Google do/doing
on social? Could be a big morale boost to the Google team

------
braindead_in
How is the PR firm linked to Facebook?

~~~
andrewcooke
Facebook employed them. Both sides have "confessed". See the Daily Beast
article - [http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-
stories/2011-05-12/fa...](http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-
stories/2011-05-12/facebook-busted-in-clumsy-smear-attempt-on-google/) [and
they give credit to USA Today -
<http://www.usatoday.com/money/media/2011-05-06-google_n.htm>]

FB complaining about privacy abuses just broke my irony meter.

~~~
braindead_in
Thanks. I scanned the article and couldn't find it.

------
orijing
EDIT: I know you are all downvoting me because I open with "I was an intern",
expecting some fuzzy comment in Facebook's defense. No, someone asked what
Facebook thinks about this, and I offered my views: I am as confused as the
rest of you. I hope the PR firm gets fired, and whoever instructed the PR firm
to try this. Give me a break, guys. Stop with the Facebook hate.

I was an intern at Facebook last summer, so I had a great time there. Color me
naive, but I don't feel the executives' personalities were "sneaky," probably
because I interacted with them in person. I didn't see anything that suggested
they would endorse this type of tactic.

With that said, I'd like to believe that it was all a misunderstanding, that
perhaps this John guy isn't really affiliated with Facebook (his email is
@bm.com), or that this was the mistake of an individual. I sincerely hope that
it wasn't an organizational effort to smear Google, because I don't see why
they'd need to.

When I was at Facebook, they were supremely confident about being able to snip
Google's entry, that they would demoralize Google and make them cry. After
all, I was in a sea of brilliant engineers, many of whom understand Google
intimately through years of service, and we just needed sheer engineering and
better products to win.

Perhaps Facebook just thought it was unfair that it was getting all of the
negative light on privacy and wanted to share the blame with someone. But I
really don't know, and I'm waiting for an official answer.

I really hope it's good, because I am surprised by this maneuver, to say the
least. Maybe the answer is "Google does this too!" But then I would just be
doubly disappointed.

~~~
Devilboy
You think Facebook would ever tell an intern about secret negative PR
campaigns?

~~~
orijing
The company was very open internally. Everything a full timer knew, an intern
could easily find out.

~~~
lwat
You think the'd tell the full-timers about secret smear campaigns against
competitors?

~~~
orijing
Like I said, everything was open. You can't keep a secret at Facebook.
Facebook isn't run like Apple--very different.

~~~
Devilboy
So now that Facebook admitted it, you're still sticking to your story? wtf

~~~
orijing
I don't have any story, except a reaction of disbelief... Plus, I can't edit
the original post anyway in light of new revelations.

The point is, as an ex-intern, I am surprised.

------
thewisedude
How this will affect Facebook? If you pretend that Facebook is a car, this
will probably be a scratch. Like how people wont give up a car for a scratch,
they probably wont give up Facebook.

The general idea that I got about the management of Facebook is that they are
a very confident bunch of guys who know what they are doing- since they have
spurned many offers to buy them out. This story however kind of conflicts with
the idea I had.

~~~
msg
They were fools to let this out in public. Not because of Facebook users but
because of developers.

Trying to win not through technical superiority but through FUD spread by
cutouts is emblematic of the worst moves of Microsoft. Yes, short-sighted
leadership at the top is responsible for many of their current woes.

But also, when tech companies make moves that lack integrity, the best workers
head for the exits. They have the least to lose because they can work
anywhere. The threshold is lower to act on the courage of their convictions.
And high integrity and great work go together.

Top college hires (perhaps the most idealistic and with the least to lose)
hear about this stuff and just don't apply.

------
danvoell
Facebook should raise more money so it can higher better (quieter) PR.

------
dhume
_I have no idea how the Facebook PR team thought that they’d avoid being
caught doing this._

Perhaps Facebook's managers think themselves exempt from the changing privacy
norms they keep telling us to accept?

------
ryan-allen
So, since Facebook has lost much face are they now just book?

------
ioa44
The "Any disclosure or dissemination in whatever form, by another other than
the intended recipient is strictly prohibited" is laughable.

------
nvictor
take a guess. how many facebook "likes" this article is going to get?

------
yalogin
Where is the link to Facebook in those emails? What am I missing?

~~~
FJCruiser79
You need to read the Daily Beast article, here: <http://bit.ly/koiEPd>

------
lucio_ribeiro
I guess the PR agency was way naive on beliving that won't spilled over them!

------
switch
Pot calling the Kettle Black.

------
yanw
They are too young of a company to be pulling this sort of seedy stuff.

Also ‘privacy’?! I hope the irony isn’t lost on anyone. It wasn't very well
thought-out, as when a net privacy panic starts spreading like wildfire
through the media the consequences in political grandstanding and potential
legislative action would hurt them as well.

So they come out of this looking like data-locking propaganda spreading
assholes. Good job!

Referenced article: [http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-
stories/2011-05-12/fa...](http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-
stories/2011-05-12/facebook-busted-in-clumsy-smear-attempt-on-google)

~~~
tnorthcutt
_They are too young of a company to be pulling this sort of seedy stuff._

Is there a time in a company's existence when it's "ok" to do something like
this?

~~~
joshfinnie
I don't think it was meant to be "ok" but more in line with the last ditch
effort. Older companies might feel as though they have pulled all the stops
and this is their last effort to make an impact.

I am not saying it is okay, just trying to shine some light on what I think
yanw meant.

~~~
nightpool
>Last ditch effort.

It could also be a 'We're the establishment, we don't care what others think
now' vibe, instead of a last ditch effort that causes some companies to use
seedy tactics.

------
ignifero
I hope facebook has a good excuse for this. A note from Zuck saying "we
apologize" won't suffice.

~~~
ugh
Apology (i.e. admission of guilt) or good excuse are both acceptable, it's the
bad excuses that are the problem.

------
Hisoka
Noone will care in 1 week. Billions of ppl will continue to use Facebook, and
90% of them will not even know about this news. Nothing to see here, just tech
boys making a huge commotion over very little

------
jsavimbi
I see no difference, or impact on my life, between this Google/Facebook
billionaire's catfight and any Twitter-borne beef between two or more
millionaire celebritainers.

------
kenmck
#faceplant

------
maxklein
Who cares? Facebook is a generic company. Google is a generic company. If they
spy on each, smash each other, etc, it changes nothing. Neither for you nor
for your startup or anything.

Personifying these companies and then writing gossip stories about them is
turning what should be real business into some kind of pseudo-fashion
magazine.

Just as little as I care for Snookie kissing JWoww, do I care about Facebook
spying on google. The impact of this is minimally negligible in the world of
real business, and something like this is just pointless gossip.

~~~
AlexC04
Honestly, I'm shocked my the downvotes being levied against all of these "who
cares" type posts.

How much face is _really_ being lost by Facebook? The audience of Facebook
users that will read about the "negative PR campaign" will be infantesimally
small (compared to their near 500 million accounts).

Then compare that infantesimally small number of users to the percentage who
didn't already know that Facebook was dodgy as hell.

The relative impact of this discovery, while interesting, makes no difference
in anything (save as being direct proof of Facebook's "Be Evil" corporate
policy).

Anyways.

I'm happy to take it on the chin in terms of downvotes here too, but the way I
see it there's nothing here that will impact anything.

~~~
tonfa
Note that at least in France, this made the front page on the website of all
major newspaper (Le Monde, Liberation, etc.). It's probably the same in many
european country where Facebook is sometimes struggling to keep a clean image.

~~~
AlexC04
Look at me and my Ethnocentricity! How true that there are other cultures
where these services are still trying to get traction and expose's like this
one can have an actual impact.

Thanks for pointing that out :)

------
AlbertoE
Doesn't seem very secret to me. If it was secret people wouldn't know about
it. A secret smear is a whisper, not a newspaper article. Furthermore its not
a smear if its true. So, 2 lies in the headline. I clicked on the link to
verify that it had no information, as things with 2 obvious lies in the
headline are wont to do. I have verified that there is no information at the
link.

------
latch
Are we just assuming that "an unnamed client" is Facebook, because DUH, who
else? Or am I missing a piece of this story?

~~~
mycroftiv
According to the Daily Beast article linked from the Techcrunch article,
Facebook admitted it: "Confronted with evidence, a Facebook spokesman last
night confirmed that Facebook hired Burson, citing two reasons: First, because
it believes Google is doing some things in social networking that raise
privacy concerns; second, and perhaps more important, because Facebook resents
Google’s attempts to use Facebook data in its own social-networking service."

That seems like kind of a weird statement from a "Facebook spokesman" so I
assume we are going to get some additional statements about this.

~~~
socillion
"[L]ater, learning that Facebook had come clean, the Burson spokesman wrote
back and confirmed it."

Top of page 2 of the original article.

