New York, May 13 (IANS/RIA Novosti) Social networking giant Facebook has admitted it hired a public relations agency to encourage investigations into rival Google's operations, Facebook's press service said Friday.

 
 American media reported that PR agency Burson-Marsteller had tried to persuade bloggers and journalists "to investigate" Google's work and the way it obtains information about Facebook users and other similar services.
 
 Facebook denied waging an anti-Google campaign, and said it merely wanted to find out public opinion and attract attention to the issue through open information sources. The company, however, admitted it should have been less secretive about its plans.
 
 Burson-Marsteller acknowledged the deal with Facebook and said it had made a mistake.
 
 Google said all the information it used was within public access on the friends-of-friends option. This function is available on many social network services, including Facebook.