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By Nicole Fletcher

The tech world is a-buzz today as Facebook creeps into the shadows with its tail between its legs. Reports indicate that Facebook paid Burson-Marsteller, a high end PR Firm to push Google bashing stories to the press. While the story did indeed get out…the jokes on Facebook..shock, gasp…as it wasn’t the story they were hoping to push.

Here’s a quote from Dan Lyons from a story he wrote in The Daily Beast:

“For the past few days, a mystery has been unfolding in Silicon Valley. Somebody, it seems, hired Burson-Marsteller, a top public-relations firm, to pitch anti-Google stories to newspapers, urging them to investigate claims that Google was invading people’s privacy. Burson even offered to help an influential blogger write a Google-bashing op-ed, which it promised it could place in outlets like The Washington Post, Politico, and The Huffington Post.

The plot backfired when the blogger turned down Burson’s offer and posted the emails that Burson had sent him. It got worse when USA Today broke a story accusing Burson of spreading a “whisper campaign” about Google “on behalf of an unnamed client.”

See the leaked emails here.

Bad Move Facebook, but as we all know, Black Hats Never Prosper. Facebook’s goal in this was to expose the idea that Google may not be following user privacy regulations when they ‘scrape’ Facebook content. Talk about a backfire though as the spotlight is where? NOT on Google and wholly on the good ol’ Book of Faces.

I mean seriously? Where was Zuck when all this was going down? Hiring a PR firm to bash Google, even going so far as to assist in the writing of the stories is, in the words of TechCrunch, “not just offensive, but dishonest and cowardly. It’s also really, really dumb.” Seiously…what were you thinking Facebook?

Again according to TechCrunch, this idiotic stunt shows a number of things:

1. Facebook’s fear of the Google giant. Facebook DOMINATES and should not be intimidated by anything or anyone. They practically control the world and this backhanded slap shows THE Social Network’s first glimmer of weakness.

2. Talk about going for the Achilles. This poor move shows that Facebook is ready and willing to engage in ‘cowardly behavior in battle’. Trust in a company who’s willing to partake in these schemes may be an issue in the future.

3. Some of these Google jabs are probably valid, but what Facebook has done deems those null and void . From here on out, the spotlight will only be on Facebook, their black hat tattle on Google, and that they got caught.

That’s all for now folks and remember, White Hat Rules.