Taiwan's Fair Trade Commission on Thursday fined the local unit of South Korea's SamsungElectronics NT$10m (£212,000/$340,000) for organising an "astroturfing" campaign to denigrate smartphone rival HTC.
In a notice on its website, the consumer protection body said that Samsung had organized an Internet campaign in violation of fair trade rules to praise Samsung smartphones while slamming those of HTC.
The incidents first surfaced in April, when the Taiwan FTC said that it would investigate the matter after receiving complaints. The United Evening News in Taiwan said at the time that students had been hired through Samsung's local agent to write online articles attacking HTC and recommending Samsung phones.
At the time Samsung posted on its Facebook page that it regretted "any inconvenience and confusion from the Internet event" and that "Samsung Taiwan has halted all Internet marketing such as posting articles on website."
The fine imposed was less than half the maximum NT$25m that could have been levied.
The FTC also handed out smaller fines on two Taiwanese trading companies it said were responsible for mounting the online 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.
The FTC action comes with HTC badly on the defensive amid disappointing sales for its once popular smartphones.
The company, which posted its first quarterly loss in the July-September period, has suffered a drop in its global smartphone market share from a high of 10.3% in the third quarter of 2011 to only 2.6% in the third quarter of 2013.
No comments:
Post a Comment
thank you for your precious time and feedback.