Samsung Accused of Paying For Negative HTC Reviews 112
judgecorp writes "Samsung Taiwan has been accused of paying to have negative reviews of HTC products put online by students who recommended Samsung devices instead. The Taiwanese Fair Trade Commission is investigating Samsung's advertising agency in Taiwan, and Samsung Taiwan has responded by cancelling all Internet marketing."
Only one thing surprising here... (Score:5, Funny)
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That there is such a thing as the Taiwanese Fair Trade Commission.
What would be surprising would be if such an organization had teeth. Here in the US we have the EPA. Seen our environment? "Nicer than China" is not an endorsement.
it was to be expected (Score:5, Insightful)
after all, they can't bully HTC on patents, so they have to do it by hiring whiners
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...hiring whiners
Do not taunt Samsung's team of compensated evangelists.
False Advertisement (Score:1)
I wonder what are those false advertisements they are talking about.
Anyway, I hope this is not a false advertisement from HTC as well.
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Is it technically false advertising?
However there should be full disclosure: "Negative review of competitor's product paid for." Or at least "This is a paid-for anti-advertisement."
agency: unknown agents and Amazon and books (Score:2)
.
What makes this different from positive advertising of your product's virtues or negative comparisons or statements about your competitor's products? Is it the hidden "agency" [wikipedia.org] of using unattributed posters to
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What about Mac vs PC?
Elections?
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Elections?
We have many many elections in Kolea. Have them plactically evely night!
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Does Amazon allow you to review a book if you haven't bought it from them? If so, yes, it's ripe for abuse.
The quality of Apple App Store reviews were low in the early days, as anyone could review anything. So lots of apps got lots of one-star reviews for being 99c rather than free. Or other really stupid reasons.
The quality of reviews rose considerably when only people that had downloaded the app were allowed to review it.
Re: agency: unknown agents and Amazon and books (Score:4, Informative)
Yep, Amazon allows reviews without prior purchase. It's why there's a whole load of book reviews from people who never read the things, some of whom readily admit to this. It's more common on controversial topics.
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Amazon does, for the simple reason that they realize not everyone buys their entire l
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Because, AFAIK, iTunes has always required owning the app to review it (since you couldn't have gotten it elsewhere).
No, I'm a developer. Originally, anyone with an account could post a review, regardless of whether they had downloaded it. There was much gnashing of teeth by developers about it.
Re:agency: unknown agents and Amazon and books (Score:5, Interesting)
The amazon situation is far worse and more widespread. I actually left a review for a book, a rather scathing one pointing out all the of problems with it. It was a scholarly book, not fiction. The book had dozens of 5 star reviews but was riddled with so many errors as to make it 1) virtually unreadable and 2) horrendously incorrect even to first year students and pretty much anyone with a brain cell.
Within hours I had hundreds of "unhelpful" votes followed by a steady stream of profanity thrown at me on my comment. Amazon removed my comment for review 6 times before putting it back due to complaints by the author. Then 8 years later the "author" and I use that term loosely, wrote another book and stuck a link to my review inside it with 12 pages of profanity laced verbiage regarding how bad a person I was and what I did with my mother. The author then posted a link to his new book in my comment so that I would be aware of its existence.
I've since removed my review because I'm frankly sick of the notifications that it's been hammered again. As it turned out though, the majority of the reviews were the authors friends and various fake accounts. It's so widespread on amazon these days I dont even read reviews anymore.
The kicker is the book was a scholarly look at the peaceful proliferation of Buddhism in the world..........
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I wonder if books are more likely to have such fake reviews than other categories on Amazon? Either way, your post is very interesting. Wish I could toss you a mod point.
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The kicker is the book was a scholarly look at the peaceful proliferation of Buddhism in the world..........
Would you have some good suggestion on this or related topics? And if possible available for Kindle (shipping of physical books to Brazil is expensive) and not costing a fortune? I've read several books by actually representative Buddhist practitioners thus from Buddhists' own perspectives, but not much by academic scholars.
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You understand that there is a threshold for libel, and that if what you posted is true, your best course of resolution is a legal one, not some arcane amazon process, right?
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For a libel case I would have to show damages. I wasn't damaged as the name on Amazon that I use is fake. Regardless, I just couldn't give a shit less about it. It was like 8-10 years ago.
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The kicker is the book was a scholarly look at the peaceful proliferation of Buddhism in the world..........
You expected a positive response to criticism from a writer of religious bullshit?
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
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I hate shills (Score:1)
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I hope there's a special level of hell set aside for them.
they're going to burn in a very special level of Hell. Along with those people who talk at the theater.
I wonder... (Score:5, Funny)
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This is exactly my thought. True or not Taiwan has too much invested in HTC to care if samsung is actually guilty.
HTC isn't exactly great though. (Score:1)
Between the faulty charger port, horrible reception, quickly draining/overheating battery, and broken promises by HTC/Verizon several times to update, I don't exactly have a very positive view of HTC.
I'll admit this is the only HTC phone I have, maybe the other ones suck less.
But regardless, while I'm not ruling it out that it's impossible for Samsung to have done such,
Re:HTC isn't exactly great though. (Score:5, Funny)
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I have had an HTC incredible for about 2 years now, I'm out of contract. Worked perfectly up until the last over-the-air update from Verizon a few months ago managed to screw over the Camera so that it sometimes reboots after taking a picture. I'm not certain of who's to blame for that update, but I'm thinking Verizon.
Otherwise, I like my phone, I'd buy HTC again. In the meantime I'm still going to use this phone for a few more years.
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Need to send out at about 8:20 pm.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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yeah such a nice 4MP camera lol! when nokia wanted good low-light performance they made a 41MP camera, and htc makes a shitty 4MP.
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I know a decent bit about photography. And what you said is true after a certain threshold of number of pixels has been crossed. I feel that the threshold is considerably higher than 4MP.
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Actually, assuming a fixed sensor size which is usually the case since your lens package determines this, the lower the pixel count, the larger the pixels are, and the more light you will get per pixel. This means, for a certain ISO, you will get a much brighter picture, the lower your megapixel count is. Esp on a phone, I'd take a 4MP with good low light over a 41MP with okay low light any day, any time.
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The 4MP camera on the HTC performs well in low-light. But the well-lit photos actually do suffer from low resolution. A better alternative is the Lumia 920's camera. It does incredible low-light and has decent number of pixels too.
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If I wanted a phone only for a camera maybe. Me, like almost everyone else on earth, has no interest in windows phones considering the horrible things MS has done to their past customers.
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my original comment was about the shitty camera only. i wouldn't have minded if it had a decent camera like samsung's phones. but they made a positively crappy camera and are trying to pass it off as something better.
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Yeah. HTC one would be my #1 phone to go to right now if their battery was removable. Not because I want to swap batteries (I'm used to my iPhone and not having that ability) but because I'm sick of charging all the time and like the SIII, there will be kits for the S4 so vastly increase your battery at the cost of some thickness. If I had this option with the One, I'd be all over it like a fat kid on a cheeseburger.
Still might go that way since I like the design so much more than the S4. Have to weigh my o
HTC doesn't need bad reviews (Score:5, Insightful)
they screwed their business themselves
no brand recognition
years of constant new phone releases under new names
crappy support and updates
crappy software. like a mail client with no push email to MS Exchange subfolders when every other android phone maker was doing it
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You forgot flouting the GPL at every turn.
Just try to get the source code for some of there products.
I like the phone design, but everything else makes sure that I will be avoiding HTC in the future.
Re:HTC doesn't need bad reviews (Score:5, Informative)
It does look like they're starting to mend their ways on that. The One's source is already out with the actual device still more than a week away.
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Unfortunately, not. They're as bad as ever.
I've tried getting the kernel code for the Thunderbolt's ICS upgrade. The reply I received was a boilerplate response to the "When's the next update going to be" question. That was last week. So, no I do not think they're getting better. The GPL's source code requirements are a joke unless a kernel dev feels like spending money to hire a lawyer.
Honestly, if Samsung wanted to trash HTC that's how they should do it. They should contribute code to the Linux kern
TL;DR: (Score:5, Funny)
Microsoft here. You remember all the nasty, sneaky, dirty tricks we've pulled over the years? Well, our latest trick is to make front groups who claim our competitors are now using those same tricks.
Let me get this straight (Score:2)
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You seemed to have missed the part where they got caught and went "oops, did we do that? So sorry, won't do that again"
From TFA:
Samsung Taiwan had originally claimed that it was unaware of the FTC’s actions, but later wrote on its Facebook page that it regretted “any inconvenience and confusion from the Internet event,” adding that “Samsung Taiwan has halted all Internet marketing such as posting articles on websites.”
Where do all these Samsung Defenders come from, I wonder... I mean, defending the company even after the company admitted doing it... Jesus.
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I just lost my job.
~Internet Reviewer for Hire!
Comment removed (Score:3)
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Samsung Ads (Score:4, Insightful)
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There's no comparison between Samsung's latest phone and the newest iphone. Their ads just want to point that out. People need to know that iphones are shit compared to a galaxy S2/3/4 and the best way to tell them is by insulting iphone users.
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Meanwhile on planet reality...
Yes, Samsung is the very first company to do this (Score:4, Funny)
Definitely no other company does this.
Is anybody surprised? (Score:2)
The fact that we have the word 'astroturfing' to describe this kind of thing should be a pretty good hint that this happens.
People pay for fake Twitter followers, good reviews, bad reviews of competitors, position papers, and all sorts of crap. It's all about managing your brand and the message.
I find nothing at all surprising about this revelation, and I strongly suspect many corporations do the exact same thing.
Hell, Microsoft, the oil industry, the tobacco industry, political parties and the *AAs routin
Not astroturfing (Score:1)
The fact that we have the word 'astroturfing' to describe this kind of thing should be a pretty good hint that this happens.
Astroturfing is a different thing; it's when a company creates a political lobbying group disguised as a "grassroots" organization. (Fake grass, get it?) Calling this "astroturfing" makes no sense, since there is no such thing real grassroots support for a company like Samsung.
This is a negative variation on shilling: paying people to badmouth your competitors (as opposed to traditional shilling, which is paying people to talk up your own product.)
Shilling is to advertising as astroturfing is to lobbying.
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Now that you've said all that. Go google for the definition of astroturfing and tell me if any of them support your assertion. Every one I can find also includes pumping products in it. Or are you going to assert that your own personal definition trumps all of the other ones?
the holy galaxy s3 (Score:2)
for almost a year i read how awesome the galaxy S3 is. then my father in law got one and i played around with it. nice phone but nothing special. i'll keep my iphone 5
guerrilla marketing at its best
They are doing it wrong... (Score:1)
It's not just negative review (Score:1)
I'm posting anonymous for a reason (fear of retaliation from Samsung)
I've followed the story since it first broke out in Taiwan. What Samsung did was not just bad review. They essentially flooded forums with flame, troll, fake discussion to create a viral campaign.
For example, a hired writer would post under ID "A" asking, which phone is better, Samsung vs HTC. Then the same guy would login using ID "B" to write good review about Samsung phone. He would then use a 3rd ID "C" to pretend to be an HTC supporte
Pretty sure they all do it but HTC has a cheek (Score:1)
It is an interesting article though because I've had similar thought's about HTC recently on certain other tech and Android forums the amount of HTC One posts is way beyond any other phone and most of them are full of nonsense reasons why the One is bette
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Android as OS
Are you really that high? Or did Samsung sponsor that? Please don't mod me as a troll, have some common sense!
captcha is "surreal"
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Just ignore him. He's an MS / anti-Google shill.
- Account created today? CHECK!
- Gets several 'first posts'? CHECK!
- Praises MS (as he did in an earlier thread) or takes shots at Google? CHECK!
This place has turned into a shill slum.
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Not hight, just a microsoft shill. He's been spending all day getting first post and vomiting bs.
Re:Android (Score:5, Insightful)
This is, actually, normal behaviour from phone manufacturers who use Android as OS. There is tons of competition in the area and put blatantly, Android based setups cant stand out for favour that easily. This makes all the manufacturers play dirty, just like Google does. Don't be evil, my ass.
I wouldn't blame Google for for the work of a few minions of another company.
Reviews are the new lies, though. There's a Brooklyn camera/technology distributor, which routinely has glowing reviews in an online rating service, which seem to utterly fly in the face of many extremely negative reviews. Having briefly interacted with the company I see where the negatives are coming from and from reading the glowing reviews realize there's too much similarity, further, customers have accused them of being encouraged with gifts to leave not just positive reviews, but very positive ones. Further, they do quite a bit to try to have the negatives deleted or discredited. Scared me off so I bought my camera stuff elsewhere.
What we need is a reviewer review site.
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Just thought I'd mention that manufacturing and marketing have very little to do with each other.
See: http://blog.thingsdesigner.com/uploads/id/tree_swing_development_requirements.jpg [thingsdesigner.com] there's a reason this cartoon is so popular (it's mostly true & hilarious).
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Just thought I'd mention that manufacturing and marketing have very little to do with each other.
See: http://blog.thingsdesigner.com/uploads/id/tree_swing_development_requirements.jpg [thingsdesigner.com] there's a reason this cartoon is so popular (it's mostly true & hilarious).
This cartoon is a lot older than you may think. I saw a copy, not including analysts or programmers, very much like this hanging around Dow Chemical back in the 1970s when I was a scout and we had a trip to a lab there.
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You are 100% correct about the age:
http://www.businessballs.com/treeswing.htm [businessballs.com]
Have yourself a cookie!
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Cough Cough B&W Cough Cough
Re:Android (Score:5, Informative)
I can vouch for that, I signed up for a cash for review service, I get $2 for making positive Android reviews and occasional $3 for Samsung reviews. It pays similar to how bulk email spamming pays, course that's like 25 cents per hundred thousand or more depending on product being spammed.
if people are interested here is a "top 12 list" of companies that will pay you to review products, apps, os, etc.
http://www.blogstash.com/12-best-get-paid-to-review-sites-to-make-money-with/ [blogstash.com]
every review either video, or written product review you post link, it gets verified and part of your account stats,
most places works similar to adsense on payouts. minimum of $100.00 in the account and they'll either send a check or direct deposit into paypal for you.
I get about $30-$50 from reviews to paypal, and I use that money to pay for my pc gaming wants :P
its shit, and make sure you always use a throw away email, I use: http://10minutemail.com/10MinuteMail/index.html [10minutemail.com]
couple hours of bullshit reviews for 'free money', most half smart people should realize that online reviews are all bullshit.
even movie critic reviews online like tgwtg website is all bullshit, cause it's all paid for work. Either for sites like tgwtg is ad based revenue and some product reviews from other contributors to crappy blog sites that get paid to write written reviews for products...
the biggest thing any sane person should know is do not trust ANY online review. most are paid for and most are bullshit
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Well, wouldn't that apply to offline reviews too?
I tend to search for forums to find out the problems first, but I do know of one instance where a company deleted forum posts to hide the fact that their AV product broke windows 7 (try to guess who, it is worth 1 internet!).
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I'm aware of that but it is nice to know who I have to thank for that.
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I generally agree; not to trust positive reviews of products made by someone with a marketing budget. I generally hone in on 3* reviews and actually read it to see the gist of what they are talking about.
Outside of that, you have newegg that is able to show reviews of verified purchasers. And this is exactly why Google is moving to the "real names" model. Because "fake names" will only hurt their bottom line in the long term. Someone could still pay a "real name" to review products, but even those could
Re:Android (Score:5, Insightful)
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That would make /. much worse.
That ship has sailed.
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However, if you want to continue on the stepping stones you've created for yourself and put your moral vacancy to better use, I recommend pushing ARMs and other exotic loans for large financial institutions, and/or pe
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I AM SPARTACUS.
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Paul is dead.