<p>SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Facebook Inc has emerged as one of the biggest Silicon Valley companies to have resisted rivals' entreaties to stop poaching each other's employees, according to emails between the No. 1 social network and Google Inc released in court filings.</p><p>Sheryl Sandberg had just been installed as Facebook's chief operating officer when one of her former colleagues from Google emailed her, according to the filings unsealed late last week. Facebook's aggressive recruitment of Google employees had heightened tensions between the two companies to "Defcon 2," top Google executive Jonathan Rosenberg told Sandberg in August 2008.</p><p>"Fix this problem. Propose that you will substantially lower the rate at which you hire people from us," Rosenberg told Sandberg in an email. "Then make sure that happens."</p><p>But Sandberg deflected Rosenberg's entreaties, saying she thought Google only had limited no-solicitation agreements with companies with which it shared board members, not blanket no-hire policies with other companies.</p><p><a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/24/us-facebook-google-lawsuit-idUSBREA2N1L620140324">Keep reading...</a></p><p>Read also:</p><p><a href="http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/24/sheryl-sandberg-facebook-refused-no-poaching-agreement-with-google/">Sheryl Sandberg: Facebook Refused No-Poaching Agreement With Google</a> (TechCrunch)</p><p><a href="http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-sheryl-sandberg-facebook-google-employees-poaching-20140324,0,1361327.story">Facebook refused to limit hiring of Google employees, Sandberg says</a> (Los Angeles Times)</p><p><a href="http://www.cnet.com/news/sandberg-says-facebook-rebuffed-google-no-poaching-pact/">Sandberg says Facebook rebuffed Google no-poaching pact</a> (CNET)</p><p>Explore: <a href="http://news.google.com/news/more?ncl=dYd8ESBA9ijn_EMARAxLFP8ueLaoM&authuser=0&ned=us">54 additional articles.</a></p>