Samsung Slapped with $340,000 Fine for Faking Online Comments about Competitors

We all know that the enormous amounts of money that Samsung spends on marketing is one of the reasons why their products are selling like crazy, but who said that money was being spent fairly? Today, Taiwan’s Fair Trade Commission announced that it was hitting Samsung with a fine to the tune of $340,000 for hiring writers to post in forums promoting Samsung products. 

Now, if Samsung was upfront about these writers being hired to talk about how awesome Samsung products were, this would not be a problem. This was not the case, writers were posing as regular forum users who would “highlight the shortcomings of competing products.” Taking it a step further, these writers engaged in “disinfection of negative news about Samsung products” and their own brand of Samsung marketing. This was brought to attention of the TFTC because HTC claimed they were the victims of this attack, but HTC was not mentioned by name in the report.

Fair or foul? Keep in mind this was a “large number” of writers from advertising companies doing this for Samsung. Is this how you beat the competition?

Via: The Verge