If
you are planning to buy a new smartphone or laptop, you look up internet
reviews and customer ratings to check out what device is best for you. But
remember not to always believe everything you read on the internet. Samsung was
fined $340,300 by Taiwan’s Fair
Trade Commission for paying people to post messages online those
attacked HTC products at the same time as they flattered Samsung’s.
The
site lists almost 4,000 examples of these kinds of assaults, with a lot of
instigating on the Chinese message forum Mobile 01. People on Mobile 01 are
permitted to state their love of Samsung or detest of HTC, but Samsung openly
paid them to make these types of posts, in spite of. This approach is also
known as astroturfing because it emulates a grass-roots campaign, but is
completely fake and unnatural.
Sun
Lih-chyun, a spokesman for the Taiwan FTC, said that Samsung’s astroturfing was
the first case of its kind in the country. “The deceitful behavior has negative
impacts on market order and violated the fair trade law,” he said, as
reported by the wire news service AFP.
“We
are disappointed that the Taiwan FTC has decided that we have violated the Fair
Trade Act based on online marketing activities,” said a spokesman for Samsung.
“Samsung Electronics Taiwan is carefully reviewing the decision and will take
all necessary steps to protect our reputation as a company which values its
customers.”
Astroturfing
doesn’t only take place with companies overseas. Lately, the online reviews
site Yelpsued the McMillan Law Group in San Diego for astroturfing when it
shaped fake positive reviews from nonexistent clients.
Sinan
Aral, an associate professor of IT and marketing at the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology, said the effects of those fake reviews might be felt long after
they’re removed. His research found that positive reviews, regardless of
whether they’re fake or genuine, snowball into more positive reviews. “It has
this kind of insidious effect,” he told ABC News. “Yelp might go and pluck
those fake reviews out, but all of the subsequent reviews are influenced to be
more positive.”
If
a business in the states gets caught astroturfing while Yelp instituted its own
policies, customers can also choose to report it to the Better Business Bureau.
“Online
reviews may represent a new medium, but the principles of honest advertising
are longstanding,” said Katherine Hutt, a spokesperson for the Better Business
Bureau. “The Federal Trade Commission has had guidelines in place for nearly 40
years that make it clear that astroturfing is an unacceptable business
practice. Ultimately, only businesses that meet our standards can remain
accredited by the Better Business Bureau.”
While
Aral’s research also says that fake negative reviews don’t spiral into more
negative reviews because of an online community’s tendency to neutralize
negative feedback, he says that it’s important for all reviewers to be honest.
“The bottom line is that ratings and consumer feedback is a centerpiece of
e-commerce,” he said. “We have to be really attuned and sensitive to detecting
fraud. “
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