The Google software that Burson was targeting is called Social Circle. Supposedly Social Circle allows people with Gmail accounts see information about friends and their “secondary connection” friends. Burson made a pitch to journalists that Social Circle was “designed to scrape private data and build deeply personal dossiers on millions of users—in a direct and flagrant violation of [Google's] agreement with the FTC.”

“The American people must be made aware of the now immediate intrusions into their deeply personal lives Google is cataloging and broadcasting every minute of every day—without their permission,” said Burson.

Blogger Chris Soghoian offered to help write an op-ed and asked Burson which company would pay an agency to spread this information around. Burson refused to give up that information so Soghoian published their e-mail exchange on his website. Then the story gained even more publicity when it was revealed that former CNBC tech reporter Jim Goldman and former political reporter John Mercurio were the two working for Burson that was pushing USA Today to write negative things about Google.

“After Goldman’s pitch proved largely untrue, he subsequently declined USA Today’s requests for comments,” said USA Today after they looked into Social Circle. Facebook, Goldman, and Mercurio should be embarrassed.

In 2009, Shan wrote an article about how Jim Goldman put together phony numbers in a slide called “True Cost of Owning A PC” while reporting on CNBC. Goldman said that it would cost you $1,500 to get a $699 PC to perform like a Mac. The numbers Goldman used broke down like this:

Norton Anti-Virus: $50/year
Multimedia Software: $80-$104
Photoshop: $104
Video Editing: $100
Music Software: $100
Geek Squad Visit: $129

When I owned a PC, I never visited the Geek Squad. Photoshop is not that cheap unless you buy an old version on eBay. AVG anti-virus is free so you don’t exactly need Norton. Windows has free video editing software built in to their operating system. Music software is free. This now makes Goldman an unethical journalist and an idiot when it comes breaking down the numbers around owning a computer.

[The Daily Beast]

According to CNBC’s Silicon Valley Bureau Chief Jim Goldman, all Macs come preinstalled with Photoshop. Macs also have 4x more battery life than PCs and they come with faster processors. Seriously how did an idiot like this get a job as “Silicon Valley Bureau Chief” for CNBC.

He believes that it will cost you $1,500 to get  a $699 PC  to perform like a Mac because Macs have higher resolution screens, weigh less, and do not need all the software PCs need to do “cool things.”

This guy has probably never used a computer in his life. He has no idea what he is talking about. I would be perfectly okay with a fair fact-based  comparison of the two.  But this idiot literally pulled this information out of his you know what.

Most PCs come preinstalled with anti-virus software. You can also get perfectly good anti-virus free of charge (AVG).  I have no idea what he means by “multimedia software.”  He apparently still lives in 1998. And where the heck can I buy Photoshop for $140?

I could go on and on but you get the point. Jim Goldman is an Idiot.

Seriously CNBC, you would be better off replacing him with a 5 year old.