Taiwan's Fair Trade Commission investigating Samsung Taiwan

Samsung Taiwan is being investigated byTaiwan’s Fair Trade Commission for alleged advertising malpractice. According to the regulatory agency, Samsung used college students in the area and had them go online, pretending to be disgruntled HTC device owners. The students would post negative comments about the Taiwan based manufacturer while positing positive words about Samsung. As a result, the Korean manufacturer could be fined $25 million TWD ($836,000 USD). Samsung Taiwan has already been fined twice for two other violations. One violation, for false advertising related to the camera on the Samsung's Galaxy Y Duos GT-S6102, cost the company $300,000 TWD in fines ($10,034 USD)

The most recent complaints, which were sent to the Taiwan Fair Trade Commission earlier this year, note that Samsung worked with a local ad agency in having HTC attacked online. For its part, Samsung Taiwan says that it regretted "any inconvenience and confusion" that it might have caused and has stopped any form of marketing that involves "posting articles on websites."

So next time you are talking to someone online that is telling you how their phone is the best and seems to be pushing a particular brand, keep in mind that you might not be talking to the person that you think you are. You might be talking to some college kid in Taiwan paid by one of the handset manufacturer's to put down a rival.

source: AFB, TheVerge via AndroidAuthority