Facebook Hires PR Firm to Plant Negative Stories About Google

Modern day fight

​It's no secret that Google has been feeling a bit insecure lately, plotting to start its own social-networking system to fend off the threat of Facebook. But the growing tech-rivalry has now hit a new low.

Recently, a top public relations firm, Burson-Marsteller, was reportedly hitting up influential reporters to write anti-Google stories -- the agency even offered to help craft a Google-bashing editorial that promised to get picked up in national media outlets, including the Huffington Post.

The PR firm was pitching stories that specifically targeted Google's privacy standards.

So who hired this savvy PR firm?

Facebook did, according to The Daily Beast.

The social-networking giant was busted after the PR firm's dirty plan backfired. The blogger in contact with the agency printed the e-mails that Burson-Marsteller had sent asking for the negative stories about Google, media outlets reported.

According to The Daily Beast:

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.

Wouldn't the two Internet giants be bigger and better if they just work together instead of fighting it out?

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