Samsung admits to posting fake user reviews on the web

http://www.techspot.com/news/52274-samsung-admits-to-posting-fake-user-reviews-on-the-web.html

by alok-g • 13 years ago

253 127 13 years ago

techspot.com

umsm• 13 years ago

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

orangethirty4• 13 years ago

More than you think.

hosay123• 13 years ago

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

orangethirty4• 13 years ago

Google has a little spammer loose on HN. Neat.

taopao• 13 years ago

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.

xwei• 13 years ago

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

do you think Google created this? Obviously not, Google get nothing from it.

mtgx• 13 years ago

He's just posting his own stuff...a little too often I agree, but nothing out of ordinary here beyond that. It's not like he's the first on HN who's ever done that.

Geee• 13 years ago

It's exactly what you would expect from a company like Samsung.

guelo• 13 years ago

A multi-billion dollar multinational conglomerate?

betterunix• 13 years ago

It is so commonplace that I am not even surprised to hear about it anymore.

cgh• 13 years ago

Yeah, I worked for an iOS game company that asked its employees to give its games positive reviews in the App Store and everywhere else they could think of. I don't think many of us bothered - I certainly didn't.

threeseed2• 13 years ago

This is very common place and I don't think there is anything wrong with it.

What is unacceptable though is deliberately trashing your opponents.

mixedbit• 13 years ago

And is it illegal? I'm pretty sure paying for fake negative reviews of competition is illegal, because there is a clear victim. But how about positive reviews of companies' products?

lutusp4• 13 years ago

> And is it illegal?

No, in most places it isn't. If a consumer was misled by a planted, phony review and bought an inferior product, he could go to civil court and demand monetary compensation, but civil courts largely deal with the kinds of damage claims that don't involve the legality of an action, only its harm.

Just remember that an illegal action would be prosecuted in a criminal court. A claim of harm would be prosecuted in a civil court.

Most of the activity surrounding phony reviews is not about the legality of the activity, but how much harm the public exposure might do to a company's reputation.

> I'm pretty sure paying for fake negative reviews of competition is illegal, because there is a clear victim.

Even in that case, it's not a question of "illegal" as much as misleading, and the remedies are usually civil, not criminal.

josephlord• 13 years ago

I think in Europe it should be illegal throughout the EU under the Unfair Commercial Practices directive. This would apply to any fake reviews.

clobber2• 13 years ago

Absolutely commonplace. Anything is 'fair' in business and nothing is off the table when it comes to money.

Even the small/local businesses do this. Just check Yelp reviews. Hell, Yelp used to allow businesses to move their best reviews to the top if they paid them enough.

1) http://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/yelp-and-the-business-...

2) http://www.zdnet.com/blog/apple/the-yelp-mafia/3116

3) http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/02/yelp-facing-class...

There was so much fallout from this back in 2009/2010 that Yelp had to turn the tables and pretend to play nice guy finally by outing businesses that buy positive reviews (starting last October).

obviouslygreen• 13 years ago

Anything is 'fair' in business and nothing is off the table when it comes to money.

Many people have this attitude, yes. That doesn't make it universally true or even close, and it's probably less commonplace than you seem to assume, particularly for small/local businesses, which overwhelmingly don't have time to waste on shill reviews.

And while it definitely happens and is widespread, you're not doing your argument any favors by citing exactly one example and suggesting it shows a trend or proves a point.

benologist• 13 years ago

It is on HN, here's a short list of sites that have gone far out of their way to spam HN:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5567427

lutusp4• 13 years ago

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.

homosaur2• 13 years ago

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• 13 years ago

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

at-fates-hands• 13 years ago

To be fair, it didn't seem like they were admitting anything. They basically said the marketing company they hired did and they regret it happened.

More common for big businesses who pay big bucks to get some exposure and then some marketing company pitches them unreal stats to get a sale, then commences to bending the rules and committing outright fraud to keep the paychecks coming in.

Steko3• 13 years ago

That's not being fair, that's regurgitating corporate pablum. Similarly to how every scandal in congress is blamed on a low ranking staffers whenever possible, corporate scandals are blamed on subcontracters whenever possible. Don't think for a second a company as profitable as Samsung doesn't know what it's marketers are doing.

MartinCron• 13 years ago

Samsung's customer base is more than large enough to let positive reviews emerge from real customers. There is no excuse for this. None. Full stop.

kostya-kow3• 13 years ago

Doing this is wrong for a company of any size, no matter if it's big or small.

chris11• 13 years ago

I think this is good that they are getting called out, but I'm not surprised. I'm sure a decent number of big companies do this. My brother bought a new truck awhile ago, and the dealership ended up filling the gas tank for him for free. They just asked to fill out a comment card for him.

rhizome• 13 years ago

Marketing-fraud.

tosseraccount• 13 years ago

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.

hkmurakami4• 13 years ago

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• 13 years ago

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.

msy• 13 years ago

Imagine the furore if Apple was caught doing this.

alyx• 13 years ago

Or Microsoft, Google, etc

rocky11382• 13 years ago

Companies who are leaders in their industry do not usually need to do this.

I've heard of it happening at smaller organizations or sole proprietorships (small business), but it is strange to see from a company as large as Samsung.

What's important is how high up the chain this was sanctioned by. If it's a lowly manager somewhere, he/she will just get fired and this will all blow over. If it's right at the top, it's much more embarrassing.

hkmurakami4• 13 years ago

Samsung's IP theft issues would lead me to believe that their credo is "whatever it takes to win" and this kind of behavior isn't out of line with their track record.

randallu• 13 years ago

Maybe they'll even send the top guy to jail (but later release him to run the olympics...)

neya• 13 years ago

Dude, I don't see why you need to defend Apple so seriously and in all probability, they are no different and just because they haven't got caught yet, doesn't mean you can't rule out the possibility that they aren't into this.

As an example, during the Apple vs Samsung patent wars (after Samsung lost), a handful of publications were writing in support of Apple even when most of them knew that Apple was abusing the patent system to its core. Most of them looked very much like they were paid by Apple to write it. Some even went as far as saying the win for Apple is good for innovation (which obviously it is not)[1]. Another example is once an author from Techcrunch even admitted to getting compensated monetarily by Apple to write a post bashing a competitor.

Apple, Samsung, LG, Sony, Panasonic, etc. are no different from each other. So let's not get religious, shall we?

[1] http://gizmodo.com/5938193/apple-winning-the-patent-wars-is-...

kostya-kow3• 13 years ago

Not on HN, because it is full of Apple fanboys.

RexRollman• 13 years ago

Well, at least you are objective.

CountSessine• 13 years ago

You lost me at 'fanboys'.

Steko3• 13 years ago

Completely wrong. I challenge HN mods to reveal which articles are voting ring flagpedo'd religiously on this site.

shapeofabox2• 13 years ago

mrpogson.com/2012/08/21/apples-paid-shillconsultant-caught-out/

_Simon• 13 years ago

Not really the same thing. That you created an account just to say that makes me wonder if you are in fact a 'shill' yourself.

benihana• 13 years ago

But they weren't. Samsung was.

jonknee• 13 years ago

There's no need, they have John Gruber.

wging2• 13 years ago

>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?

austenallred• 13 years ago

Eventually all you have to do is mimic human behavior closely enough and it's untraceable. Sometimes that's expensive, but it's always doable.

wging2• 13 years ago

It didn't sound to me like this is an automated system. Just humans pretending to be who they're not.

Pxtl• 13 years ago

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.

batiudrami3• 13 years ago

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.

sigzero• 13 years ago

Samsucks again...

viseztrance2• 13 years ago

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.

r00fus• 13 years ago

So was it a few bad actors, or just the few that got caught?

tonyedgecombe• 13 years ago

These things always go back to the top, it's cultural.

coldtea2• 13 years ago

That's the way conspiracies work.

What did you expect, aliens?

viseztrance2• 13 years ago

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

D9u• 13 years ago

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

itg• 13 years ago

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

shitlord• 13 years ago

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

desslock• 13 years ago

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• 13 years ago

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.

TazeTSchnitzel• 13 years ago

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

lutusp4• 13 years ago

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.

lostlogin5• 13 years ago

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

proland• 13 years ago

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• 13 years ago

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

polshaw• 13 years ago

They could well have been responsible for some of them, but there are certainly a lot of us who feel that way reasonably strongly.

batiudrami3• 13 years ago

I doubt it. People who like those features are typically very vocal about them (especially since they're dying out).

victorology• 13 years ago

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.

debt• 13 years ago

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...

fpgeek• 13 years ago

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• 13 years ago

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.

DigitalSea• 13 years ago

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.

yoster• 13 years ago

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.

lostlogin5• 13 years ago

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

burkeen• 13 years ago

They all do this.

acd• 13 years ago

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_Michon3• 13 years ago

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-...

niklas_a• 13 years ago

..in taiwan against HTC

saturdaysaint• 13 years ago

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

Samsung admits to posting fake user reviews on the web

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