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Cengage Advantage Books: Fundamentals of Business Law Today 10th Edition by Roger LeRoy Miller
Edition 10ISBN: 978-1305075443Cengage Advantage Books: Fundamentals of Business Law Today 10th Edition by Roger LeRoy Miller
Edition 10ISBN: 978-1305075443 Exercise 5
Facebook Uses Privacy Concerns to "Smear" Google
With close to one billion users, Facebook is the largest social network in the world. Although Facebook has had various competitors, none has posed as much of a threat as Google. Several years ago, Google added a social-networking feature called Social Circles that eventually became part of Google+. Today, Google+ has more than 100 million users and is growing faster than Facebook.
Privacy Policies Matter
For many users of social networks, privacy is a major concern. Facebook has faced a number of complaints about its privacy policy and has changed its policy several times to satisfy its critics and to ward off potential government investigations. One of Google's main advertising points has been its social network's ability to keep "conversations" private and limited to as few individuals as users desire.
As the rivalry between Google and Facebook intensified, Facebook hired Burson-Marsteller, a public relations firm, to plant anonymous stories raising questions about Google's privacy policy. Although Facebook later claimed that Burson-Marsteller was only supposed to investigate how Social Circles collected and used data, several influential bloggers reported that they were approached by Burson-Marsteller and asked to publish
negative stories about privacy concerns on Social Circles. In some instances, Burson-Marsteller even offered to supply the stories-one would have claimed that Social Circles "enables people to trace their contacts' connections and profile information by crawling and scraping the sites you and your contacts use, such as Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook."
The Campaign Backfires
If Facebook's goal was to discredit Google, the plan failed dramatically. Bloggers across the Web responded with a mixture of derision and amazement. Some pointed out that planting anonymous stories violated Facebook's privacy policy for its own site, while others said that Facebook's effort to attack Google showed that the social-networking giant was running scared. Writing in Wired magazine, Steven Levy concluded that "Facebook was running a smear campaign against itself."
If you were part of Google's legal team, on what basis might you think that you could sue Facebook and its public relations firm?
With close to one billion users, Facebook is the largest social network in the world. Although Facebook has had various competitors, none has posed as much of a threat as Google. Several years ago, Google added a social-networking feature called Social Circles that eventually became part of Google+. Today, Google+ has more than 100 million users and is growing faster than Facebook.
Privacy Policies Matter
For many users of social networks, privacy is a major concern. Facebook has faced a number of complaints about its privacy policy and has changed its policy several times to satisfy its critics and to ward off potential government investigations. One of Google's main advertising points has been its social network's ability to keep "conversations" private and limited to as few individuals as users desire.
As the rivalry between Google and Facebook intensified, Facebook hired Burson-Marsteller, a public relations firm, to plant anonymous stories raising questions about Google's privacy policy. Although Facebook later claimed that Burson-Marsteller was only supposed to investigate how Social Circles collected and used data, several influential bloggers reported that they were approached by Burson-Marsteller and asked to publish
negative stories about privacy concerns on Social Circles. In some instances, Burson-Marsteller even offered to supply the stories-one would have claimed that Social Circles "enables people to trace their contacts' connections and profile information by crawling and scraping the sites you and your contacts use, such as Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook."
The Campaign Backfires
If Facebook's goal was to discredit Google, the plan failed dramatically. Bloggers across the Web responded with a mixture of derision and amazement. Some pointed out that planting anonymous stories violated Facebook's privacy policy for its own site, while others said that Facebook's effort to attack Google showed that the social-networking giant was running scared. Writing in Wired magazine, Steven Levy concluded that "Facebook was running a smear campaign against itself."
If you were part of Google's legal team, on what basis might you think that you could sue Facebook and its public relations firm?
Explanation
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Disparagement of Property takes place wh...
Cengage Advantage Books: Fundamentals of Business Law Today 10th Edition by Roger LeRoy Miller
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