Now another prominent Googler has train-hopped to the popular social-networking company as well. As first reported by BoomTown, Elliot Schrage, vice president of global communications and public affairs at Google, is leaving the search sovereign to become Facebook’s vice president of communications and public policy.

“[Elliot Schrage] will be responsible for developing the key messages we want people to understand about our products, our business and the growing global importance of social networking and what we do,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in an email to employees announcing the hire. “The goal here is to help people understand how the Internet can strengthen people’s relationships. Elliot will direct our efforts to work with users, media, governments and other entities around the world to ensure that Facebook’s policies are transparent, responsive, effective and are recognized as being those things. … This is a really important role for us and one that we’ve been trying to find the right person for a while. Elliot’s role will be critical to helping us scale based on our culture that values transparency, openness and honest internal communications.”

“Elliot’s role will be critical to helping us scale based on our culture that values transparency, openness, and honest internal communications”?

Clearly, Zuckerberg meant “build from the ground up a culture that values transparency, openness and honest internal communications.” Because it’s only been about six months since the Beacon fiasco, which demonstrated how grievously the company was lacking in those qualities (see “DiaperFetishFactory.com Is Sending a Story to Your Profile,” “Epicurious Has Added a Potential Privacy Violation to Your Facebook Profile,” “Fiascobook,” and “Fiascobook, Redux“).

Perhaps if Facebook recruits enough former Googlers, it too will be able to lay claim to a silly informal motto like “Don’t Be Evil.”

Comments like Moskovitz’s are a far cry from the accusations of talent-hoarding leveled at Google just a few years back. “Google is doing more damage to innovation in the Valley right now than Microsoft ever did,” LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman told the New York Times in 2005. “It’s largely that they’re hiring up so many talented people, and the fact they’re working on so many different things. It’s harder for start-ups to do interesting stuff right now.”

Quite a contrast in perceptions, yeah? Funny, how quickly the hottest-of-hot Valley companies can begin to lose currency in tech’s talent pool. Not that we haven’t seen this sort of thing before. “Twenty years from now, Google … will essentially become the Microsoft of today,” said management consultant David Goodenough. “This is the norm.”