
Samsung admits to posting fake user reviews on the web - alok-g
http://www.techspot.com/news/52274-samsung-admits-to-posting-fake-user-reviews-on-the-web.html
======
wging
>perhaps the bigger issue here is this: if Samsung has been using these
tactics against HTC, are they also engaged in similar marketing techniques
with other rivals?

The even bigger issue is, who else is doing this more intelligently than
Samsung?

~~~
Pxtl
This. I love Samsung hardware, but the company seems critically unable to
think big. They have no apparent direction or higher thinking, they just make
solidly good devices and throw gobs of money at marketing. It's bizarre - in
spite of their devices and a reputation for quality gear, they still _act_
like a cheap Korean knock-off company instead of a market leader.

It's no surprise that when they try to do evil, they do it in a clumsy and
public manner.

~~~
batiudrami
Samsung are one of the biggest and most diversified companies in the world
(did you know they are the world's biggest ship builder? Or that they offer
life insurance?). I don't have difficulty imagining a lack of organisation and
direction in management when they have so many arms doing so many different
things.

~~~
D_Alex
>did you know they are the world's biggest ship builder?

Nope... they are not. That would be Hyundai, and the second largest is
probably Daewoo. Samsung could be third. (I worked at Daewoo and Samsung
shipyards).

Tangential funny: the shipbuilding division is called "Samsung Heavy
Industries", usually abbreviated to SHI. Samsung means "Three Stars" in
korean. The shipyard tug was called the "Tristar". Due to unfortunate
typography, the name on the ship was "SHIT ristar". True story, I have photos.

~~~
batiudrami
Haha fair call. I actually misread and it's listed as the 2nd biggest
shipbuilder. Still, people tend to be surprised as typically when I think
'Samsung', I imagine TVs, phones and laptops.

~~~
NamTaf
Samsung are also involved in building processing, rail and port infrastructure
for Australia's Iron Ore region.

[http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-28/samsung-c-t-
wins-a-...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-28/samsung-c-t-
wins-a-5-9-billion-order-for-roy-hill-ore-project.html)

~~~
ishansharma
Not to forget Samsung Artillery.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K9_Thunder>

------
lutusp
The title is a bit misleading -- the story is not that Samsung used devious
marketing methods, the story is that they were caught. Any number of companies
hire shills to post phony endorsements, the trick is not to get caught.

In fairness to companies like Samsung, if everyone is doing it, to stand on
principle is to risk being trounced by those who don't.

~~~
homosaur
We are talking about Samsung here, this is the company that has pretty much
ripped off every successful design in its history. I'm fairly certain they've
never stood on principle for anything but a hearty office chuckle.

~~~
andrewljohnson
This is just xenophobia, unsubstantiated, and unfair to all the hard working
employees.

~~~
guptaneil
What does xenophobia have to do with it? We don't know where homosaur is from.
Even in the US, there are many beloved foreign corporations, such as Nintendo.
I don't think anybody discounts Samsung for being Korean, or even cares.
Likewise, I doubt many people support Apple just because its American.

Regarding unsubstantiated, they have been openly accused and even found guilty
in multiple courts across different countries. It's an ongoing case and you
may disagree with the rulings, in which case "unsubstantiated" is not the word
you're looking for.

As for being unfair to hard working employees, that is definitely true.
Unfortunately for those employees, their executives' actions have brought
their hard work into question. Any comments regarding a company are generally
a reflection on the company's leadership, not any individual employee.

~~~
homosaur
I'm from Murica, and yeah, I do not care about it being Korean and I don't
particularly have positive feelings for Apple. I would assume in general
Americans have a neutral to positive view of Korea in general so I don't know
why that would matter. I do use Mac computers and have been forced by my
employer to use their crap phones but I have no great affinity for them or
their company.

But yeah, Samsung ripped them off hard. It really isn't even about Apple. Sure
the hipsters got upset when someone had a phone that looked like their iPhones
but Samsung as a company has a long history of completely ripping off all
their designs. Apple was just the hottest at the time so they are who got
copied.

I can come up with dozens upon dozens more examples throughout history of
Samsung blatantly copying designs but I won't because who cares? Do a search
of "samsung copies x" and you will find thousands of pages showing examples.

The only time Samsung doesn't copy well is when they're implementing the "and
paste" variety on their phones. As a consumer I don't care but as a designer I
do vaguely resent their lack of design innovation. Or even treading water.

(someone will now please link to the blog that shows the dozens of Samsung
ripoffs over the years as I cannot find it in my bookmarks)

------
msy
Imagine the furore if Apple was caught doing this.

~~~
kostya-kow
Not on HN, because it is full of Apple fanboys.

~~~
CountSessine
You lost me at 'fanboys'.

~~~
fuzzix
That's handy, because that was the last word of his post.

------
fpgeek
I just can't get over how mind-bogglingly stupid this was.

Even having decided to use dirty tricks to strengthen their overall marketing
effort... What possessed them to try to go after HTC in _Taiwan_ of all
places? As HTC's stronghold, Taiwan is simultaneously the country where:

1\. This sort of campaign is least likely to be effective.

2\. Samsung is most likely to be caught.

3\. Local regulators are most likely to be sympathetic to HTC's complaints.

I mean I understand that people generally overestimate their chances of
success and underestimate the chance of being caught, but this is ridiculous.

~~~
marcosdumay
Etiher there are some stupid people making local policy at Samsung Taiwan, or
in the places with less chances of getting caught they got away with it.

------
tosseraccount
No one is shocked to hear that astro turfing is going on on the internet.

A few too many "English Major style" reviews and it's pretty obvious.

~~~
hkmurakami
That reminds me of how the genuine reviews on Yelp are of the terse, "This
place sucks. Their dish XYZ was terrible, service took $NN." style that look
spammy and get removed by their spam algorithm.

------
kailuowang
Phony endorsements maybe deemed as "misleading advertisement" as long as they
remain trueish (They can argue that the paid reviewers did experience the
product and did like it. Nothing much different from a celebrity endorsement)
. Fake negative reviews on competitors are really despicable and IMO should be
penalized heavily by law.

In general, as a consumer, I feel sick when vendors trying to fool me by
pretending to be one of us.

------
desslock
I suspect this isn't the first instance they've done this.

Looking closer at Anti-Apple/ Pro-Samsung Google+ posts reveal some
questionable user profiles.

~~~
uxp
I really liked Google+, up until #BoycottApple came around.

Really hard to follow any technology news without getting inundated with
nonsensical rants against every breath Steve Jobs or Tim Cook took and takes,
respectfully.

------
D9u
Sort of like how Reddit used a bunch of sockpuppet accounts to spark interest
in their site?

~~~
itg
I go there every now and then and still wonder if half the comments are left
by bots/shills/etc.

~~~
shitlord
Unfortunately, most of the default/large subs are full of jokes/one-
liners/"viral marketing" (aka spam).

------
proland
I wonder if this is related to the myriad of "NO SD CARD, NO REPLACEABLE
BATTERY, NO BUY" type user comments that littered positive reviews for the HTC
One.

~~~
CrazedGeek
I made one of those comments (although worded a bit better). I certainly
wasn't paid :(

------
umsm
It's sad that samsung would do this... Is it commonplace for companies to do
this?

~~~
hosay123
You decide.. <https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=infoman>

The domain was registered one day after the HN account was registered, first
post wasn't made for 14 days (aka. when the username no longer appears in
green). In his defence, if he is a shill, he's not very good at it.

Edit: hnsearch picked up a hellbanned post (it should appear on the front
page, but it doesn't) at <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5567259> that
mentions a couple more accounts

~~~
taopao
Looks like a bot that programmatically shovels trendy topical matter from RSS
into HN. The submission and article headlines are identical, down to the curly
quotes - smells of automation to me.

~~~
jacquesm
Bookmarklet.

------
TazeTSchnitzel
Great, now I have to prove I'm not a "Samsung shill" before being positive
about Samsung products.

~~~
lutusp
Not really. Most readers look at a person's entire posting history before
making that kind of claim. And most people who post phony reviews, post too
many of them to escape attention.

~~~
lostlogin
I'm not sure that people look at posting history even here, where posting is
generally considered and careful.

------
victorology
Samsung has been doing this for a while in their home market of South Korea.
I've heard tales of Samsung hiring 1,000 temporary employees with the sole
task of blogging or commenting on blogs/social networks about their products.

------
DigitalSea
I don't doubt this isn't an activity that most companies engage in, some more
than others. There are probably a lot smarter companies who have yet to be
caught and might not ever be caught. Some act surprised, but in this day and
age of anyone being able to taint or inflate the reputation or a product,
brand, location or business you can't really expect anything less.

------
viseztrance
I hope they get sued for this, but I don't believe it's a conspiracy. Rather,
just a case of someone trying too hard to meet certain sale expectations and
hold on to a bonus.

~~~
coldtea
That's the way conspiracies work.

What did you expect, aliens?

~~~
viseztrance
Samsung is a big company, I meant it's someone in their Taiwan branch rather
than their Korea hq.

------
debt
it's interesting to note that doing this is illegal; i had no idea. it's also
important to note that it's possible to determine whether an entity is engaged
in the practice: [http://www.technologyreview.com/news/428222/statistics-
unmas...](http://www.technologyreview.com/news/428222/statistics-unmask-phony-
online-reviews/)

------
acd
One word to describe Samsungs actions Unethical.

This reminds me somehow of when Apple was fixing the reception bars to show
more coverage than there actually were on the iPhones.

~~~
Samuel_Michon
It was the other way around: Apple fixed the reception indicator to reflect
coverage _more accurately_.

“We were stunned to find that the formula we use to calculate how many bars of
signal strength to display is totally wrong. Our formula, in many instances,
mistakenly displays 2 more bars than it should for a given signal strength.
[...] To fix this, we are adopting AT&T’s recently recommended formula for
calculating how many bars to display for a given signal strength. The real
signal strength remains the same, but the iPhone’s bars will report it far
more accurately, providing users a much better indication of the reception
they will get in a given area. We are also making bars 1, 2 and 3 a bit taller
so they will be easier to see. We will issue a free software update within a
few weeks that incorporates the corrected formula. Since this mistake has been
present since the original iPhone, this software update will also be available
for the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 3G.”

[http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2010/07/02Letter-from-
Apple-...](http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2010/07/02Letter-from-Apple-
Regarding-iPhone-4.html)

------
saturdaysaint
Much of their fluffy positive press in the last few months has the scent of
astroturf, too.

------
sigzero
Samsucks again...

------
rhizome
Marketing-fraud.

------
niklas_a
..in taiwan against HTC

------
burkeen
They all do this.

------
yoster
Hm, when reading articles about Apple or Samsung, I tend to read the comments
as well on Yahoo!. I notice within the first couple of hours, the comments are
all pretty much Apple bashing. There are hundreds of comments in support of
Samsung with tons of flaming going on. Reading this, it all makes sense.

~~~
lostlogin
Reading the comments is not something I ever do anymore, except here and on
Asymco. It makes you feel cleaner somehow.

