Friday, July 05, 2013

Samsung's Interns

Taiwan's 'Apple Daily', a regional newspaper, revealed how Samsung used a network army comprised of most student interns to attack competitors (including HTC, when they were caught).

The Pay is hard to earn: a student need to register at gender oriented forums with IDs in each gender, and post or reply every day; add 20 random friends on Facebook, replying 100 posts per month, and reply to 10 designated posts per week in disguise of totally stranger. Having completed all above worth NTD 1500 ($50).

The reporter, who worked two months undercover for this report, also obtained a detailed price list on original posts on top of basic monthly load:

    $11: Positive opinion of a product over 30 words, with self reply;
  • $200-$260: Sharing positive opinion with more than 6 pictures and over 600 words, attracting over 10 replies;
  • $130-$160: Text with over 600 words, attracting over 5 replies;
  • $600 per month: Maintaining a Facebook group on a product; need 60 posts; 4 bonuses per month;
  • $$: blogs are negotiated base by case;

Update: Oct 24, 2013. Taiwan Trade Commision fined Samsung $350,000 and its hired commentators $100,000 for deceptive advertisement. The commission found Samsung had contracted people to make false comments since 2007.

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