First mistake : attacking Google, also known as the overlord of the internet (as far as the internet has one)
Second mistake : attacking a feature that was largely unknown. I just learned of its existence, thanks to this story !
Third mistake : getting caught
Fourth mistake : When you're Facebook, you should never ever complain that anything is a violation of privacy. It's like a fast-food company claiming something is low quality food and an insult to taste.
Just as an aside, Carl's Jr. was involved in a campaign against McDonald's Chicken McNuggets ("Exactly what part of the chicken is the nugget? Eat Carl's Jr. all-white chicken breast"), which, I think, worked fairly well for them.
The point is, Facebook should complain about privacy in PR, because it implies that they care about it (whether or not they actually do care). Anyway, I think your points are pretty solid otherwise.
Many times it is good picking up enemies, it's good PR, but the fight has to be in the open, not slimy, otherwise it can turn into a PR disaster.
Whatever negative PR they cold pull for Google, it's much less than the heat they'll be getting for this ... and when you're taking risks, IMHO, you need to make damn sure those risks are worth it.
1. "Attacking the overlord" - People bash Google all day, every day; for privacy reasons and what have you. Seeing as Facebook is Google's biggest competitor and vice-versa, attacking Google doesn't seem to be a mistake.
2. "Bringing attention to Circles" - It's the "but THEY're doing it too!"-method fb is using when it comes to privacy and Google, plus, "we care about privacy". However, you forgot the main point: Nobody was supposed to know Facebook was the one behind the reports.
Yes - but you could have just repeated the Fourth mistake four times. Facebook is the last organization that should be pointing out privacy issues at other companies.
While the naive me wants to act shocked, the other part of me gets the feeling this is business as usual and mostly just a big deal because it leaked out. I wouldn't be surprised if Google had its own anti-FB plants doing their thing.
May be someone from the PR world can tell us how common/uncommon this type of "operation" is.
I've never been involved in this sort of PR, but basically the big deal isn't that it happens, it's that they got caught.
While it's behind the scenes it's hard to say how much it happens, but it doesn't really matter. I mean, the PR firm were trying to spoon feed a writer with information he could use to write a story, if he decides that information is worth writing, and readers decide it's worth reading, then fair enough.
But it's an important story because Facebook have failed to keep secret the fact that they are trying to attack Google, and that will have implications on politics between those two companies. Even if Google already knew that Facebook were doing this kind of stuff (more than likely), Facebook being outed changes how Google can act towards them with a different public reaction.
the big deal isn't that it happens,
it's that they got caught
Big words, no references ... not wanting to do an ad-hominem here, although I could ;) ... at least provide some anecdotal evidence that software companies, in Silicon Valley, as public and as visible as Google are doing it.
Uncommon for the agency to not disclose who their client is with this kind of request (ghost writing an op-ed under the byline of an expert).
BM offered a mea culpa today that notes as much:
Now that Facebook has come forward, we can confirm that we undertook an assignment for that client.
The client requested that its name be withheld on the grounds that it was merely asking to bring publicly available information to light and such information could then be independently and easily replicated by any media. Any information brought to media attention raised fair questions, was in the public domain, and was in any event for the media to verify through independent sources.
Whatever the rationale, this was not at all standard operating procedure and is against our policies, and the assignment on those terms should have been declined. When talking to the media, we need to adhere to strict standards of transparency about clients, and this incident underscores the absolute importance of that principle.
It's a low return high risk move. Low return because Social Circles is not a major player or a significant threat. Large risk because it's very likely you will be outted and it's a very large, public failure.
Having even a faint cloud of uncertainty hovering over a competitor (direct or not) is an advantage even if you don't have a specific product to promote in place. Think of this as more of a psychological war to win the hearts/minds of the consumer marketplace.
So this isn't okay but Google hiring pro lobbyists to swoon politicians for favorable laws isn't?
We need to get over this ideal that just because a company is in tech it's somehow "above" the business as usual tactics that have worked for generations.
1.Correct, a smear campaign is not the same as lobbying. Hence the outrage.
2. How is a smear campaign "business as usual"? Just because Zuckerberg has low ethical standards doesn't mean that you or I have to. As strange as it may seem, it's quite possible to run a successful business without psyops and Zero-sum mentality.
I would argue that an element of lobbying is in fact the practice of "smearing" or otherwise clouding the perception of a competitor or opposing viewpoint.
I think your classification of Zuckerberg as having low ethical standards is quite a laughable assumption. Do you know him personally or did you just watch the movie?
Why exactly is it a smear campaign? "Smear" to me implies the charges are false or unfair, not just that you use a sockpuppet to make them. Maybe what Facebook had their PR firm say about Social Circles is untrue or misleading, but no one seems to be arguing that point.
(Incidentally, I have no great love for Facebook and find them vaguely creepy, but Google also does a lot of creepy things privacy-wise, and that shouldn't be dismissed just because of the manner in which the charges were publicized.)
Finally facebook has a counterpart, which is a lot more better since Google is now fully dedicated to innovate Google as a Social Networking Titan, this might have been a disaster for facebook.
phone jammer http://www.espow.com/wholesale-security-surveillance-jammer....
How prevalent is this tactic of spreading FUD about competitors? And does it usually work in with blogs? Is every blog post we read a result of PR lobbying on the media/bloggers?
Earlier today someone questioned a submission and its relevance to HN, saying submissions are becomming more and more like reddit, and "what's next, imgur links?".
In my reply I explained why he was wrong about that submission. And now, coincidentally, this is the first time I've seen an ingur link on HN. If only he hadn't deleted his comments, I'd know who he was and go apologise to him for downplaying his prediction.
Actually you'll notice that I haven't ever said HN is turning into Reddit, and when somebody else said that on a thread earlier today I was the one replying against that opinion.
I was merely expressing that this one single comment which links to a terrible image doesn't belong on HN.
(And not that it matters but I've been on HN longer than my account has.)
One of the ten links on the first page is to a zero-content image intended for humor, and it's from six days ago. The other nine are content: screenshots to prove things, pictures of work environment, etc.
