Samsung fined again for posting fake product reviews on forums

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Taiwan’s Fair Trade Commission has fined Samsung $340,000 after finding it guilty of paying bloggers and staff to post fake product reviews on forums, praising Samsung products and criticizing competitor ones, reports Phys. Taiwanese company HTC is believed to have been the main victim of the campaign.

The FTC set Samsung’s fine at New Taiwan dollars 10 million ($340,000). It also levied smaller fines on two Taiwanese trading companies it said were responsible for mounting the Internet campaign.

Earlier this year the FTC fined Samsung NT$300,000 for misleading advertising about the camera functions on its Galaxy Y Duos GT-S6102 phone … 

Creating fake accounts with paid writers or company staff posing as customers is known as ‘astroturfing.’ The FTC said that the fake comments had been sufficiently widespread to have a real effect on product sales.

Earlier this month, Samsung predicted record profits as HTC reported its first ever loss.

We can at least be confident than Samsung didn’t pay for these reviews …

Via The Verge