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 har

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.