Samsung has been slapped with a fine of $341,000 as a result of its unethical marketing strategy that involved hiring bloggers to post comments criticizing HTC products.
Samsung has found itself in hot waters again and this time for adopting iniquitous marketing strategies. Taiwan's Fair Trade Commission (FTC) found that Samsung Taiwan had initiated an unfair marketing campaign by hiring an advertising firm that paid students and bloggers to write posts and comments on local online forums that criticized HTC products and relayed a positive image of Samsung products.
The FTC began the investigation in April after Samsung was initially accused of unethical marketing practices. During the investigation, Taiwanese officials learnt that the South Korean tech giant hired OpenTide Taiwan, a local advertising firm, to lead the campaign.
The commission handed down a $340,000 (10 million Taiwanese dollars) fine Thursday, against Samsung and $100,000 fine against OpenTide for violating Article 24 of Taiwan's 2010 Fair Trade Act, which states: "In addition to what is provided for in this Law, no enterprise shall otherwise have any deceptive or obviously unfair conduct that is able to affect trading order," ZDNet reports.
On Samsung's end, the company denied that it has violated the Fair Trade Act and has maintained a "transparent and honest communication with consumers," a spokeswoman said in a statement.
HTC, on the other hand, declined to comment on the situation labeling it a "legal matter."
The news comes soon after the tech giant issued an apology to all Chinese consumers, Wednesday, after being heavily criticized by the country's state-run, CCTV, for selling phones with faulty memory chips. Samsung was previously fined for a similar act that involved misleading advertisement about the camera on Galaxy Y Duo, which resulted in a $10,200 fine by Taiwanese commission.
