WOW, is Facebook really that worried ?
They were gonna pay someone to write a bad story about Google+'s circles ? Even if someone took them up on their offer, if someone was to start writing crap about the circles, they would start to see how AWESOME it is. How would having the power to control how private you want to be a bad thing ?
FOR SHAME !
* EDIT *
This wasn't about the Circles in Google+. This was about a different service offered by Google. Here is the service they are talking about:
http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/
Here's a Youtube video explaining it:
Google Social Search Update
Read the email after the jump: