Samsung has ended an
online campaign in Taiwan amid a local regulator's probe into
whether the company broke the law by paying for positive reviews of
its products and negative comments about rivals.
Taiwan's Fair Trade Commission (FTC) is gathering information
after receiving emails earlier this month alleging posts to online
forums were suspicious, said Sun Lih-Chyun, a commissioner at the
regulator. Samsung said in a statement the situation was
"unfortunate" and it ceased using anonymous comments in online
marketing last year.
Samsung, which has overtaken Apple and Nokia to lead the $US294
billion smartphone market, last month
unveiled its new Galaxy S4 handset at an event in New York's
Radio City Music Hall. Taiwan-based HTC, which
released its flagship HTC One last month, has lost market share
amid competition and delays in shipments of own products.
"These are the two star products at least for the first half of
this year," said Warren Lau, an analyst at Kim Eng Securities in
Hong Kong. "So I would suspect that some sales marketing people
will try their very best to market their products."
Posts to online forums are alleged to have included criticism of
rival smartphones, including those made by HTC, and praise of
Samsung's products, Sun said. HTC has been asked to provide
information, while Samsung has yet to be contacted by the FTC, he
said.
'Insufficient understanding'
Samsung, which announced its online communications credo in
2011, said it remains committed to engaging in transparent and
honest communications with consumers.
The South Korean company's credo prohibits criticisms of
competitors and their products and it voluntarily ceased using
anonymous comments last year, it said in a statement.
The situation "occurred due to insufficient understanding of
these fundamental principles" of transparent and honest
communications with consumers, Samsung said.
The commissioners discussed whether the posts would breach one
of the articles of fair trade regulations relating to false
advertising, with penalties of as much as $TWD25 million
($A812,000) an incident, said the FTC's Sun.
A more serious breach of a separate article on defamation is
also being investigated and could lead to criminal charges with
imprisonment of as long as two years per case, Sun said. A
defamation case would first require a victim to file a formal
complaint, he said.
"We are disappointed that a competitor would resort to
misleading consumers to discredit our innovation," HTC said in a
statement.
Bloomberg