Within the political arena negative campaigns are commonplace, even expected and accepted. It seems to be the norm to engage political gurus in stealth tactics to “uncover” opponents’ weaknesses or momentary ethical lapses. But short of the political arena where all is “game,” the days when smear campaigns actually work are over, given this transparent world.

Facebook got a whiff of that today…

What left Facebook red-faced, is the big buzz that ensued over the story that broke about the “clandestine” way it went about to clobber Google about privacy issues. It secretly hired a top notch public relations firm “to pitch anti-Google stories to newspapers, urging them to investigate claims that Google was invading people’s privacy” according to the Daily Beast.

Apparently two ex-broadcasting “stars”, now working for the PR firm, had been very busy indeed, packaging a negative story, concocting some of it and, even offering to help an influential blogger write a Google-bashing op-ed, promising to get it placed in major mainstream media outlets. And all this, without revealing the identity of its client. And to what purpose, the public good?

When the claims proved largely untrue or at the very least exaggerated, the blogger blew the whistle and the whole incident became an embarrassing PR fiasco resulting in temporary dings to the otherwise “trustworthy” reputation of Facebook and the stellar reputation of the PR firm, Burson Marstellar who, over its 58-year history, has represented blue-chip corporate clients . This whole incident underscored the rivalry between Facebook and Google, as they go confronting each other over Internet users’ time and advertisers’ budgets.

Look, tomorrow this incident will be yesterday’s news. Both Facebook and Burson Marstellar have issued statements that although purposely vague, do have semblances of apologies. This whole matter will have been but a “blip,” or hiccup, but it has left some questions about the crossing of ethical lines according to the Public Relations Society of America’s ethical conduct policies.

PR professionals fiercely guard their reputation with the media as trusted sources and for good reasons. This transparent world of ours will not bear any infringements on that trust. Public relations should not be used as a weapon to destroy competition, rather should be forthright in communicating an organization’s contribution to the well-being of society, whether through products or services the consumer can use or want, or contribute to the public good in terms of laws, regulations, environmental concerns or social interests.

If this sounds altruistic, it’s not, for it is the norm for the code of conduct within the PR industry.

Bad week for both trust and transparency…

Just take a look at last week’s Facebook privacy leaks, when all of the top 10 apps on Facebook were leaking. It turns out that user IDs of six of the most popular apps, were leaked to advertising networks included FarmVille, Mafia Wars, and several card and puzzle games. According to Facebook, it knew nothing about it, and put the blame on the games’ publisher, Zynga who was doing the selling.

It’s not the first time that Facebook’s face has turned red…

It happened last May when the WSJ discovered that Facebook was leaking user IDs through its ad sales on the site. Facebook corrected that problem, albeit too late, of course, for some users. Apparently they never thought to see if its app publishers were leaking or selling the same information, leading us to the Zynga debacle of this week.  What will be the next thing that Facebook discovers?

Each chip dings users’ trust.

And then there was Google that admitted, also last week, that its Street View cars, scooped up emails and passwords from Wi Fi networks as they cruised around. The company is “mortified,” and has implemented changes, but maybe not quite as “mortified” as the people who trusted Google not to snoop in the first place.  According to Google they initially collected only “fragmentary” data, but the true extent of the Wi-Fi snooping was only uncovered recently by regulators outside of Google, in some cases looking into possible criminal charges.

How many dings does it take to lose trust?  Most cheating spouses usually only get one…

As to transparency, one has only to look at the non-transparent Wikileaks, the self-proclaimed whistle-blower’s web site, to know that transparency works both ways.  Under the guise of freedom of information, the site has now released two “troves” of classified military records, an earlier one on the Afghan conflict and the recent one on Iraq, causing vast damage without any attempt at substantiation.  The founder, Julian Assange, now a hunted man, has not found it necessary to reveal who is funding the organization, friend or foe, for what political cause, the source of their information, the process of evaluation as to what to publish, or even to what purpose. So much for transparency…

Transparency needs trust and trust demands transparency. It’s the measure of it that cannot quite be trusted, as in “to what extent is a company transparent?”  Clearly it’s a marketer’s choice as to what information is transparent and what is not, what is made public and what remains within corporate walls. But once parameters are established, transparency is all about consistency and how it is communicated, a formula that will surely elevate trust.

Classified military material, on the other hand, is an antonym to transparency and should remain outside of such a discussion…

In light of Google’s decision to shut down six music blogs on Google’s properties Blogger and Blogspot for copyright infringement, there are perhaps many in the webiverse that are second guessing what they have on their sites. The fact is, it is extremely easy to violate copyright on the web and, increasingly, it is very difficult to know what the rules are.

To save brand managers and marketing and PR professionals the hassle of getting a law degree, following are three places where content can be found that is not bogged down with the threat of copyright litigation:

1. Flickr.

Flickr is arguably the leader of hosted web images on the web, although certainly sites like Picasa and SmugMug are certainly worth noting. Flickr’s unique feature of isolating “Creative Commons” licensed images, separates it from the pack. Creative Commons is a “copyleft” movement that attempts to put better controls on copyright law by allowing publishers to license their content however they choose. Some licenses are stricter than others, but each license makes very clear how the image, or work, can be used.

To use a photo or an image from Flickr on your blog or website, simply go to flickr.com and search for your picture. Click on “advanced search” and scroll down to the Creative Commons section. You can choose to look for pictures that you can use non-commercially, commercially, or with adaptation privileges. Then the resulting search will provide photos that you can, rest assured, use with the artist’s permission.

Note that even with Creative Commons there are limitations so be sure to read and understand the license. Most of the licenses under Creative Commons require that you attribute the source of the photo.  Often a link back to the Flickr photo with the Flickr user’s name is sufficient. When in doubt, Flickr makes it easy for you to contact the source and ask how he, or she, would like to be attributed.

2. Google

If you can’t find what you need on Flickr, Google has a photo search by Creative Commons as well. When you click on “advanced search” on the Google page you’ll see a selection about “usage rights” and you can easily choose your criteria from there before searching. This will pull up not only images, but also texts and blogs.

The search will return many Creative Commons licensed media, but also can include other more software-oriented licenses like the GFDL(GNU Free Document License) and things that are simply in the public domain. However, always check the source and make sure it explicitly releases those rights to you and, when in doubt, pass for something you are sure about.

3. Project Gutenberg

Project Gutenberg is perhaps the largest online collection of public domain and freely licensed content on the web. One can read, download and email all the works of Shakespeare and Plato and listen to CD’s before downloading sheet music. There is so much content here, in fact, that it may difficult to sift through.

Gutenberg can be a resource for text, commentary, books and music, and each article explicitly details what is appropriate use of the content. Gutenberg boasts that its content can be used for “nearly all uses,” but there may be limitations that are detailed by entry.

The bottom line to copyright infringement is to use common sense.  Resting on with the idea that you are safe under “fair use” rules is not stable ground. Fair use is often ambiguous, vague, and easy to argue. Free licensing and public domain are safe avenues because the usage is clear. There are many tools in place to determine if what you are using is okay or not.

If you don’t know the source and can’t determine the copyright than don’t use it, because it isn’t yours.

Google’s tug of war with the publishing industry plays out everyday. It’s familiar and goes like this… Google offers free search tools that allow people to find content that publishers publish, while publishers want to get paid for the content offered. It’s that simple. But once the cat is out of the bag, what’s there to do? Say no, no, you can’t read this for free anymore?

So somebody in that very smart organization figured out as to what remains attractive to readers in actually reading a newspaper offline, say over a morning cup of coffee or on a commuter ride to work. It turns out that it is not the rustling or feel of the pages as one might have thought, but rather the freedom to flip pages at will, that matters to readers.

The silliness of this boggles the mind, but apparently it is true that being able to read a paragraph or two of an article before flipping pages to read the rest of it, is what makes newspaper reading satisfying and efficient of a reader’s time.

So being a clever player, Google took this tidbit of information seriously enough to create the experimental news hub called Fast Flip in Google Labs, a visual search engine that lets readers flip through webpages of more than three dozen magazines and newspapers – of course, hosted on Google. In return for permission from publishers to show full pages, rather than short snippets, Google agrees to share advertising revenue with publishers.

Fast Flip is an outcome of what Google had considered a major problem with news sites: slow to load, and as such, potentially turn off many readers. They reasoned that browsing news on the web is slow and that when it is fast people will look at more news and more ads. Really?

The service is being initiated with the cooperation of about three dozen publishers, including major news outlets like BBC News, The New York Times, The Washington Post and Newsweek; magazines like Cosmopolitan, The Atlantic, Esquire and Good Housekeeping; and Web-only publications like TechCrunch, Salon.com and Slate.

Ok, they may have cleverly found a way to flip pages online, but no one can seriously think that this will present a new revenue model for publishers or replace newspapers’ plunging advertising revenues. It is a pittance and a nod to the publishing industry that Google wants to stay wedged in as publishers continue to search various models under which they would charge for content. Apparently Google wants to be a player in those plans, too.

With Fast Flip, Google aimed at getting closer to the experience of scanning through physical newspapers or magazines. What they have done in fact, and with much hullabaloo, is simulated online what we already have offline.

That’s the real tug of war…