In a rapid about-turn, Mark Zuckerberg has reopened access to his Google+ account.

On Wednesday, Zuckerberg changed the settings on his Google+ account so that the general public could no longer see how many followers he had, an ironic move for someone so keen on his customers sharing their data. This meant that the Facebook king dropped out of the Social Statistics rankings completely, even though he had been in the number one slot previously.

However, Zuckerberg has overnight relaxed the privacy settings on his Google+ account and is back at the top of the rankings.

No explanation has been given by the Facebook chief as to the change. But Sneak has a feeling that the many raised eyebrows over Zuckerberg's sudden desire for privacy while still collecting stacks of data on Facebook users might have been the catalyst.

The Google executives who had disappeared off the list have also reappeared.

Earlier today, Social Statistics posted an update about the change: "Yesterday Mark Zuckerberg, along with several Google employees, closed off his profile so their numbers weren't visible anymore. Looks like today they reversed that setting. This completely reshuffles the top 100, again."

Still, Zuckerberg looks like the winner in all this, gaining 50,000 new followers since 12 July, up from 135,000 to 185,000 as of midday 14 July. However, he's ditched the 70 friends he had in Circles last week so this experience can't have left him feeling all that sociable.

Staff at Facebook spend their well-remunerated time dreaming up new ways to entice users to part with their hard-earned personal information so the site can target brilliant adverts to each one of its 600 million or so users.

It's a succesful strategy and next door neighbour Google wants a piece of the pie, launching its own get-rich-quick social network site Google+.

Facebook head honcho Mark Zuckerberg was obviously keen to see what the competition's up to and joined the service when it launched, quickly becoming the most followed person on the site.

Well, he was, until he made his profile private, in a move laden with delicious, creamy irony. For Facebook, you see, has had a problem with privacy. Namely, yours. It didn't want to give it to you without a fight.

Enhanced privacy could mean fewer pieces of information to pass on, and less bait to entice advertisers, so the site makes being private particularly tough and new services are always open by default, with privacy hidden away deep in the settings.

But Zuckerberg, it seems, likes his own privacy, and is jolly glad therefore that Google thought to stick some privacy settings in so he could disappear to the corners of the site, watching his rival from within its own belly. Creepy.

Perhaps even more bizarrely, Google's own top Google+ users - Larry Page, Sergey Brin and Vic Gundotra, the senior vice president of social networking (still not the mayor, he needs to check-in more) - have also gone private.

They sucker us in with promise of ever-lasting happiness, then hide away to watch their devious plans unfold. Guys, come back. Sneak needs more friends!

It's certainly been a struggle for Google in the social networking space of late.

First its Orkut service failed to set the world on fire, unless you live in South America, then there was the ill-advised Buzz launch, which ended up causing more bad headlines for the company as privacy lawsuits flooded in from angry customers.

Things appeared to have gained a little momentum after co-founder Larry Page took the reins as chief executive in April, restructuring the search firm and apparently linking 25 per cent of staff bonuses to Google's performance in social media.

Now, just when the dust seems to have settled on Google's latest attempt to grapple some market share from the cold, blue hands of undisputed leader Facebook, Page's nemesis has struck back.

Yes, in a cruel twist of fate, according to Google's own stats ranking the top 100 most popular users of its new, and generally well-regarded, social networking service Google+, guess who comes in at number one? Yup, Mark Zuckerberg.

Page himself comes a fairly distant second, while Google SVP of social Vic Gundotra is in third place and co-founder Sergey Brin is fourth, but it is the Facebook supremo who sits proudly atop the pile with 21,213 followers and counting.

Sneak can only imagine what percentage of Google staff bonuses will be linked to getting him off the top spot should the rankings stay as they are for much longer.