Bobbie Johnson of Guardian’s Technology Blog is not happy that Facebook announced its Beacon-related settlement on Friday:
There are few things that make me more suspicious of a company than when they push out some sort of news announcement late on a Friday afternoon. It’s almost always bad news, purposely intended to miss the news cycle and seem like old hat by the time Monday morning rolls around.
This sort of damage limitation technique is a time-honoured tradition: the West Wing called it taking out the trash; Labour spin doctor Jo Moore gave it when she suggested that September 11, 2001 was “a good day to bury bad news”.
So when an email popped up in my inbox at the tail end of Friday from Facebook that started out by saying “apologies for the late timing”, my radar immediately went off. And then, it turned out, the email was detailing a $9.5m legal settlement between Facebook and a number of litigants over its controversial Beacon advertising system.
So was Facebook burying bad news? Or just running late? I think the answer’s pretty clear – and I don’t think we should let Facebook get away with it so easily.
Read more of his commentary on Guardian.
See this site’s previous coverage here.