Samsung Accused of Paying Developers for Promotion

Samsung Says “Ouch.”

Global communications giant Samsung found itself on the wrong side of the fence and is now facing and investigation over possible questionable marketing techniques. If this is found to be true Samsung will not only have to face penalties, they will also lose face, or in American terms respect/honor and possibly many consumers as well.

It seems as if in a move out of a movie script Samsung allegedly hired students to actually go and make false statements against the competitions HTC One on a number of major tech sites and forums that had positive benchmark results for the HTC One product. Dishonest journalism gets you the fast track, and then just as fast kicks your ass back to the curb as no one likes lies and bullshit and it catches up with those types quickly.

Samsung has released the following statement regarding this action: “future marketing work would be more in line with its company philosophy of transparency and honesty.” Unfortunately, it seems one company working for Samsung never got the memo about transparency, shame, shame people now Samsung has gotten their first public spanking, something that has never occurred before. If you like the theme of having a “Fall Guy” or “Patsy” to blame then you will like how this story is thus far unfolding. Samsung has said that its ad agency is to blame for these recent stinky messes and has been offering money to developers to help promote the South Korean owned company.

The Verge yesterday reported that developers on the Stack Overflow community had been offered money to promote Samsung’s Smart App Challenge. According to the report, viral marketing company Fllu was contacting Stack Overflow community members and offering cash in exchange for mentions of the Samsung Smart App Challenge. Originally the ad company Fllu vehemently denied that Samsung was their client, but the cat was let out of the bag by Sherlock Holmes style moves ☺, as the Verge was able to verify through email headers that the emails sent to “Stack Overflow” users had come from the same source as its own communications with Fllu “Samsung”. This leaves Samsung with their pants around their ankles as Samsung states that clearly the actions of Fllu are against the policies of Samsung Corporation. Fllu however, now admits to working for Samsung, but Samsung has reiterated its stance to “engage in transparent and honest communications with consumers.” Whatever the case it seems Samsung has got some splaying to do Lucy, but with a company that big a little dirt can never hurt. Thanks for reading Tech Of Tomorrow my chums, so what do say? Is the Bad on Samsung, or bad on Fllu, or totally bad on both? Let us know in the comments below.

Via: Tom’s Hardware