Wow this is embarrassing for facebook the company said it had taken on an a PR agency Burson-Marsteller to try to place negative stories about Google.

They made story's that called Google’s privacy policy into question. The PR company approached well-known US blogger Christopher Soghoian, whose research is focused on online security, urging him to investigate Google’s privacy policy. In exchange, Burson said it would help him get the piece published on influential sites such as The Huffington Post.

Quite rightly the PR company has said it was a mistake to have taken on the assignment.

“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.”

I am surprised no one has lost there job from this yet.

The affair is deeply embarrassing for Face book and Burson-Marsteller and is rather amusing that Google is to hold its annual Zeitgeist Europe conference this weekend in London. Apparently those who are due to attend the event is Sir Martin Sorrell, whose advertising group WPP owns Burson.

Google and Face book have been fighting each other over on line traffic for a while now. Google has caused concern to Face book by trying to move in on its social media, as Google is supposedly working on a network called Google Social Circles.

Some Reasons why Face book and Google do not like each other.

1) Adverting revenues from money. Google makes a good sum of money from Ads as advertisers buy space on its search results pages. Face book also makes money out of ads and is trying to suck the on line advertising revenues away from Google. Deep information about their consumers is now big business and a lot of detailed information about trends can be pulled from Facebook to give to advertisers. More money that is spent on Face book can mean less for Google.

2) They operate on different conceptions of the web Googles premise is that it supports an open web. Face book works on a private web basis. Face book won't let Google index their private pages.

3) Both want to be news power-brokers and your portal to the internet Google wants to stay at the heart of the internet. It wants to be the first place you go when a news story breaks or if you want to find out about a certain area.  Face book increasingly wants to be the centre of your internet experience. With new  media like email and pages, it's no longer just about where you see stuff about your friends - it's where you see shopping brands. It's personalised to you because you've chosen what will feature in your news feed. That's a problem for Google.