One of the things that the Internet has been all abuzzed about (at least in the corners I visit) for most of this past week is the odd PR-smear-campaign by Facebook against Google. The odd parts, of course, being the caught-in-the-act and kettle-calling-the-pot-black aspects of the whole thing.

The article that best captures the true ramifications of this is by Steven Levy, published in Wired. I post his conclusion here:

I conclude that Facebook was running a smear campaign against itself

And who is to argue with that, really?

Assuming Google did not hack Facebook, or perform some other malicious activity (and if so, evidence please), the only reasonable argument that Facebook can make is that Google is using information that Facebook made public. It is fair to argue whether or not Google should (or should not) use this information, but the blame clearly ought to go Facebook’s way.

Photo found at Things Organized Neatly. Credit unknown.
Webcomic is Octometry, by Jamie Canepa.