You may have read about about this today.

Facebook and the PR agency it hired, Burson-Marsteller, are having to do some damage control today after the agency began a whisper campaign about Facebook competitor Google’s Social Circle.

PRNewser has the backstory.

USA Today wrote about the PR pitch earlier this week and revealed who was behind it:

Pushed by two high-profile media figures — former CNBC news anchor Jim Goldman and former political columnist John Mercurio, both of whom recently joined Burson — the whisper campaign illustrates how privacy has become a lightning-rod issue. Goldman pitched the Social Circle issue as a huge privacy breach to Google users and an important story for consumers.

Goldman was CNBC’s correspondent in Silicon Valley for 7 years, departing last year for the public relations giant. Mercurio is the former executive editor of National Journal‘s The Hotline.

> Earlier on mediabistro: Google’s Marissa Mayer: “Google hasn’t gotten social right yet.”