Michael Arrington wrote a fascinating post on TechCrunch today about Facebook secretly employing a PR firm to smear Google.
The seemingly invincible Facebook doesn't seem so confident today. The bigger question is what seed of doubt has been sown in the mind of Facebook's users. When a company holds so much power over our data they have to be perceived as straight and above board. Facebook's constant changing of policies around privacy raise the question of "Who benefits?"
Facebook has been growing at a crazy pace and the financial deals that have been struck just increase the pressure to perform. Crude acts like this smear campaign just go to show that Facebook is desperate to keep growing quickly and to monetize the social graph we have donated to them. The chatter around the introduction of Facebook's local deals offering suggest that they are resorting to crude and heavy handed techniques that may not be in the best interests of their users and the ecosystem that depends upon Facebook.
If Facebook wants to own us and our social graph then they have to act in a responsible and straight forward manner.
Google is not beyond reproach but they do at least appear to position themselves as not holding our data hostage. Facebook - not so much.
