Facebook admitted on Thursday it had hired a public relations firm to highlight supposed flaws in Google Inc’s privacy practices, but denied it had intended a smear campaign against the search giant.
Facebook, which has taken privacy missteps of its own with users in the past, hired WPP-owned public relations firm Burson-Marstellar to focus attention on the use of consumers’ personal information on Google Social Circles, one of Google’s less known social networking features.
The revelation highlights the growing rivalry between Google, the world’s leading Web search business, and Facebook, the largest social networking site with over a half a billion users globally.
Facebook and Google’s skirmish shows how consumer privacy, particularly around sensitive data, could be a ticking time bomb for modern Internet companies who manage an increasing amount of information about their users, such as credit card and social security numbers.
Burson-Marstellar contacted several journalists and privacy experts without revealing the identity of its client. Facebook said it should have presented the issues in a “serious and transparent” way.
“We wanted third parties to verify that people did not approve of the collection and use of information from their accounts on Facebook and other services for inclusion in Google Social Circles,” the company said in a statement. “Facebook did not approve of use or collection for this purpose.”
Google was not immediately available for comment.
Privacy and security analyst Christopher Soghoian was contacted on May 3 by Burson-Marstellar asking if he was interested in writing an opinion column on privacy issues related to Google Social Circles.
“What struck me as odd was that this e-mail wasn’t pitching for a company, but against it,” Soghoian said. “They said if I don’t have time they can write the column for me and get it into places like the Huffington Post and The Hill.”
Soghoian, who has advocated against both Google and Facebook for lax privacy practices posted the Burson-Marstellar e-mail on his blog on May 3, but it was not until after USA Today published similar e-mails some days later that the mystery client was eventually confirmed to be Facebook.
Both Google and Facebook offer free access services for the most part which rely on their users’ trust. That trust has helped Google build a business with a market value of US$172 billion, while Facebook has been valued at more than US$70 billion by private investors in recent weeks.
Sony Corp has spent several weeks dealing with a major privacy problem after its online system was hacked, compromising the personal data of more than 100 million online video game users.
WASHINGTON’S INCENTIVES: The CHIPS Act set aside US$39 billion in direct grants to persuade the world’s top semiconductor companies to make chips on US soil The US plans to award more than US$6 billion to Samsung Electronics Co, helping the chipmaker expand beyond a project in Texas it has already announced, people familiar with the matter said. The money from the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act would be one of several major awards that the US Department of Commerce is expected to announce in the coming weeks, including a grant of more than US$5 billion to Samsung’s rival, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), people familiar with the plans said. The people spoke on condition of anonymity in advance of the official announcements. The federal funding for
HIGH DEMAND: The firm has strong capabilities of providing key components including liquid cooling technology needed for AI servers, chairman Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday revised its revenue outlook for this year to “significant” growth from a “neutral” view forecast five months ago, due to strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers from cloud service providers. Hon Hai, a major assembler of iPhones that is also known as Foxconn, expects AI server revenues to soar more than 40 percent annually this year, chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) told investors. The robust growth would uplift revenue contribution from AI servers to 40 percent of the company’s overall server revenue this year, from 30 percent last year, Liu said. In the three-year period
LONG HAUL: Largan Energy Materials’ TNO-based lithium-ion batteries are expected to charge in five minutes and last about 20 years, far surpassing conventional technology Largan Precision Co (大立光) has formed a joint venture with the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院) to produce fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, mobile electronics and electric storage units, the camera lens supplier for Apple Inc’s iPhones said yesterday. Largan Energy Materials Co (萬溢能源材料), established in January, is developing high-energy, fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries using titanium niobium oxide (TNO) anodes, it said. TNO-based batteries can be fully charged in five minutes and have a lifespan of 20 years, a major advantage over the two to four hours of charging time needed for conventional graphite-anode-based batteries, Largan said in a
Taiwan is one of the first countries to benefit from the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, but because that is largely down to a single company it also represents a risk, former Google Taiwan managing director Chien Lee-feng (簡立峰) said at an AI forum in Taipei yesterday. Speaking at the forum on how generative AI can generate possibilities for all walks of life, Chien said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) — currently among the world’s 10 most-valuable companies due to continued optimism about AI — ensures Taiwan is one of the economies to benefit most from AI. “This is because AI is