According to a new report, the Taiwanese Fair Trade Commission has launched an investigation on Samsung, due to the company allegedly paying students to post negative comments online and in forums about Samsung's smartphone rival, HTC.
CNET is reporting that Samsung is believed to have hired the students to write inflammatory comments about HTC products while also praising and recommending Samsung smartphones. Samsung is now under fire, facing charges and public embarrassment, all because it allegedly wanted to promote itself and trash HTC.
"The commission says that this type of behavior is akin to false advertising. According to AFP, the Fair Trade Commission spokesman Sun Lih-chyun said, 'The case was set up last week after we received complaints.' "
The AFP claims that Samsung used a local advertising agency to hire the students to post anonymous inflammatory comments about HTC online and in forums. If the investigation finds that Samsung and the advertising agency practiced false advertising, they will be facing fines of up to $835,000.
Samsung has released a statement to CNET regarding this matter:
"Samsung Electronics remains committed to engaging in transparent and honest communications with consumers as outlined in the company's Online Communications Credo. We have encouraged all Samsung Electronics employees worldwide to remain faithful to our Credo. The recent incident was unfortunate, and occurred due to insufficient understanding of these fundamental principles.
Samsung Electronics Taiwan (SET) has ceased all marketing activities that involve the posting of anonymous comments, and will ensure that all SET online marketing activities will be fully compliant with the company's Online Communications Credo.
We regret any inconvenience this incident may have caused. We will continue to reinforce education and training for our employees to prevent any future recurrence."
The statement does not help Samsung's credibility. A company as big and successful as Samsung can't blame this type of illegal conduct on "insufficient understanding of these fundamental procedures." If it doesn't understand that this way of doing business is wrong, it has much bigger issues than an $835,000 fine. What happens in the dark always comes to light.
