“Samsung has admitted that developers were offered money to mention its developer competition on the popular developer community Stack Overflow,” Aaron Souppouris reports for The Verge.
“In a statement issued to The Verge, the company condemns the actions, noting that they were ‘clearly against Samsung Electronics corporate policy,’ Souppouris reports. “The company claims it wasn’t aware of the situation, and as soon as it found out that a PR firm was offering cash for content, it cancelled the plans.”
Souppouris reports, “Masking paid content under the guise of ‘grassroots’ communications like forum posts is commonly known as ‘astroturfing.’ Just as Fllu [the PR firm at the center of the scandal] is an agency working for an agency, several degrees of separation are common with astroturfing, making it difficult to trace back to the source, but, crucially, very easy for companies to deny… Earlier this year, Samsung’s Taiwan branch admitted that students were paid to spread negative comments about the company’s local rival HTC.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Samsung. Nothing is beneath them.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Jax44” for the heads up.]
I beg to differ. Any buyer of a Samsung phone is lower than Samsung.
And how about phone carriers AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, et al, who continue to push samsung products in their stores.
Right Samsung, it’s what ad agencies do best for their client, bribe people!
Nice to see that Samsung doesn’t just steal from Apple; their marketing team is stealing directly from Microsoft’s coveted playbook.
Actually, those actions were clearly in line with Samsung Electronics corporate policy, which is about committing systematic corruption, arranging bribes to the government, and criminal fraud — generation after generation of the ruling dynasty.
And the ITC uses FRAND Patents to ban import of Apple products, but continually DELAYS actions against Samsung who was found long ago by a Jury after a length trial to have violated Apple Utility and Design Patents. Corruption???
It’s funny how people are so apologetic only after they get caught.
Plausible deniability. Reminds me of a corrupt President.
Ballmer? Schmidt? Page? Bezos? …
Obama? Nixon? Bush Jr?
What’s NeXT? Are they going to blame the ad agency on copying apple patents?
Wait, I thought Samdung only had three rules in their corporate policies; Lie, Cheat & Steal?
Yea sure Samsung. Put your lies on the ad agency instead of confessing the lies you did yourself. That makes it easy.
Your continuing to lie will not help you. You are pitiful company and I won’t ever buy a product with the Samsung label on it.
Wonder what will happen if it is Apple caught doing this? I don’t quite remember if the papers did even report about Samsung being caught cheating on their S4 benchmark test.
One of several articles pointing out Samsung’s S4 benchmark FRAUD:
Samsung caught boosting benchmark performance numbers on Exynos devices (updated)
Samsung, Walks, Talks & CRAWLS ON ITS BELLY like a like Reptile!
… PANTS ON FIRE.
Yeah right. Blame the PR firm. Soooo obvious Samsung. So like you always are. You can’t do anything the right way. That makes you, you guessed it, LAME.
Goosung has a corporate policy? LoL…