[HN Gopher] Asus UK PR believes it is 'legal to buy positive rev...
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Asus UK PR believes it is 'legal to buy positive reviews'
Author : dangle1
Score : 203 points
Date : 2023-05-13 14:36 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.kitguru.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.kitguru.net)
| jsdeveloper wrote:
| Its illegal to cheat! and buying positive reviews is exactly
| that!
| swayvil wrote:
| Call it a free speech thing. Like bribing legislators. The
| business is speaking to the "decision making person" in the
| language of business : words of money.
| DizzyDoo wrote:
| My dentist here in Canada has signs up that advertise that you
| get a free electric tooth brush if you leave a 5 star review on
| Google. I've not done that, it seems quite wrong, but I would
| imagine this is also very much against Google's policies? I was
| surprised how clear and obvious the signage was.
|
| Seems to have worked though, the dentist's office has lots of 5
| star reviews.
| newsclues wrote:
| People will give up passwords for a cheap pen. Free stuff is a
| hack for many peoples minds.
|
| There is a reason salespeople will bring you a coffee and
| donut.
| abyssin wrote:
| Last week I returned a borrowed suit and I was afraid to be
| late because it had been more than a week. The owner of the
| place told me it would be fine if I left a 5 stars review. Now
| I'm wondering how common this gaming is.
| r3trohack3r wrote:
| This sign always has the opposite desired effect on me. If I
| see a sign trading for 5-Star reviews, there isn't any way for
| me to tell which reviews were written for a free burrito. So I
| immediately discredit all 5-star reviews the restaurant
| receives.
| mellosouls wrote:
| I do this anyway, I just don't trust rating systems so tend
| to remove the top and bottom marks.
|
| Obv not a perfect solution and unfair to those who aren't
| gaming but over the top 5 star and bitchy one star reviews
| even when genuine aren't always that representative.
| notahacker wrote:
| Even without people gaming or buying reviews the 2, 3 and 4
| star reviews tend to be more thoughtful about what is and
| isn't good about the product.
|
| One of the reasons why the "5* rating or your driver gets
| fired" norms encouraged by the likes of Uber are so awful.
| NoZebra120vClip wrote:
| As a corollary, then, is it legal to buy negative reviews on
| competing products?
| orra wrote:
| That's a pertinent question.
| mnd999 wrote:
| It almost certainly (in the UK at least) would carry a high
| risk of a defamation claim for the people writing (or
| generating) them.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Defamation means lying. You can buy negative reviews of
| your competition where nobody lies.
|
| There are certainly a lot of interesting subtleties and
| implications here though.
| mnd999 wrote:
| Sure, you could give 100 people the competitors product,
| have them use it and then review it and just publish the
| negative ones. Maybe that's also useful market research.
| I don't think that's what most people buying reviews
| online do.
| flangola7 wrote:
| The charge of defamation includes more than just lying.
| [deleted]
| causality0 wrote:
| UK defamation laws are more like a religious inquisition
| than American defamation laws. You essentially have to
| prove your innocence.
| pevey wrote:
| In the US, truthfulness of a statement is an affirmative
| defense to libel/defamation, but believe it or not, that
| is not the case everywhere. Specifically, it is not the
| case in the UK.
| rsynnott wrote:
| Not sure why people believe this so frequently; it's
| completely wrong. Truth is an absolute defence under both
| systems, though there are significant differences around
| burden of proof and importance of intent.
| dataflow wrote:
| > Truth is an absolute defence under both systems
|
| My limited understanding (not a lawyer, just a rando) is
| that truth may be an absolute defense to _defamation_ in
| the US, but defamation isn 't the only ground you want to
| cover here.
|
| In particular, "public disclosure of private facts" seems
| to be illegal without the subject's consent in some
| states. [1] I can't tell if the effective law is
| significantly different in the UK, or whether the main
| difference is just the semantics of whether it'd fall
| under "defamation" or something else.
|
| [1] https://www.shouselaw.com/ca/personal-injury/harm-to-
| reputat...
| mk67 wrote:
| Damn, that sounds insane. Is the UK the only country in
| the world with this? What is the reason?
| rsynnott wrote:
| As mentioned elsewhere, the UK does _not_ have this, but
| there are libel systems, generally old-fashioned ones,
| where truth is not an absolute defence (a couple of US
| states still have criminal libel laws where truth may not
| be an absolute defence, though use of these presumably
| wouldn't be constitutional, say).
| lesuorac wrote:
| i.e. Japan where even if something is true there needs to
| be an actual public interest in my publishing of it.
|
| [1] > Under Article 230-1 of the Criminal Code of Japan:
|
| > "(1) A person who defames another by alleging facts in
| public shall, regardless of whether such facts are true
| or false, be punished by imprisonment with or without
| work for not more than three (3) years or a fine of not
| more than 500,000 yen."
|
| Personally I like the UK model where the speaker is on
| the hook for knowing what they say is true. It shouldn't
| be too much to ask people to avoid making an unfounded
| claim ...
|
| [1]: https://kellywarnerlaw.com/japan-defamation-laws
| gpderetta wrote:
| Italy has criminal libel laws where truth is not an
| absolute defence. It is routinely used to silence
| journalists. There is for example currently an high
| profile case involving Roberto Saviano being sued by the
| Italian PM.
|
| There have been multiple calls to reform it as the law
| obviously does not conform to European and International
| standards, but I believe the reforms haven't gone
| anywhere yet.
| jeltz wrote:
| Sweden, and to prevent character assassination. For
| example, back when that was taboo, by revealing that
| someone was homosexual.
| mnd999 wrote:
| Truth is a defence here, but you have to prove that what
| you said is true, not the other way around.
|
| If you made up 100 negative reviews that's going to be
| tricky.
| detaro wrote:
| I'm fairly sure that's wrong.
|
| In the UK, you are expected to prove that it is true for
| the defense to work though, whereas in the US it's
| generally enough to be able to argue that you reasonably
| believed that what you said was true. Hence why the UK is
| a favorite location for celebrities/companies/... to sue
| compared to the US: It's a lot harder to defend reporting
| based on hearsay and indirect conclusions there.
| ekianjo wrote:
| defamation applies to people, not objects, right?
| Quarrel wrote:
| It isn't legal for them to buy positive reviews in the UK.
|
| They might have some problems with the Advertising Regulator,
| but their bigger problems would be with the Competitions &
| Market Authority. Misleading & deceptive conduct to sell your
| goods is illegal in the UK (and the EU & Australia and other
| places).
|
| Negative reviews would seriously open you to being sued by the
| people you are review bombing..
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| I thought that deceptive conduct to sell goods is illegal
| everywhere, as that pretty closely matches the textbook
| definition of fraud ("gain through deception")?
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| > Misleading & deceptive conduct to sell your goods is
| illegal in the UK (and the EU & Australia and other places).
|
| How often is this enforced?
| s1k3s wrote:
| So does the entire group of "tech reviews" creators on YouTube.
| Finding an actual review of a product has become impossible,
| since most videos are just the guy basically reading the product
| landing page with some nice angles on camera. Ban this and the
| entire category disappears from YT.
| forgetfreeman wrote:
| Fucking gross. The individuals involved here lack all character
| and should have been fired the moment they suggested anything
| like this.
| Veen wrote:
| You'd be hard pushed to find a PR flack who does have
| "character".
| forgetfreeman wrote:
| Agree categorically.
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| Sometimes you need to be "honest" and admit how else are
| you going to get positive reviews anyway?
| forgetfreeman wrote:
| I'm not sure I follow, could you elaborate?
| kgwxd wrote:
| It absolutely should be legal. But also, if you have to, everyone
| now knows you're actually garbage. All this does is expose how
| useless review/rating systems are.
| [deleted]
| anigbrowl wrote:
| PR people are a cancer on society.
| MrGilbert wrote:
| Asus is currently in a bad spot, as they released a BIOS update
| as Beta, which should address an issue where their boards would
| cause a CPU to explode.
|
| They did, however, leave the usual "this is beta, install on your
| own risk, this will void your warranty" disclaimer on, which
| currently backfires, as it seems as if Asus does not want to take
| responsibility. It is unknown if the statement was intentional ,
| or just the usual disclaimer.
|
| Of course, that PR statement doesn't help.
|
| Source: https://youtu.be/cbGfc-JBxlY
|
| (There are more sources to it)
|
| //Edit:
|
| Another well-known channel stated that they used Asus for a long
| time, and noticed a decline in quality of the samples provided
| (as far as receiving boards that have been RMA'ed before), and
| also noticed that the RMA experience for average Jane and Joe has
| become worse. Asus also failed to negotiate further sponsoring
| the channel by simply not getting back to requests. As such, the
| channel completely canceled all business relations to Asus.
|
| Source: https://youtu.be/wZ-QVOKGVyM
| pitaj wrote:
| According to Linus Tech Tips, the disclaimer was unintentional,
| they intend to honor the warranty, and they're working on
| removing the disclaimer.
| oatmeal1 wrote:
| How does he know the disclaimer was unintentional vs.
| 'putting it in there to see if we can get away with it?'
| pitaj wrote:
| It's impossible to really know because we don't have mind
| reading capabilities, but he believes that their intention
| was never to void warranties for this.
| philipov wrote:
| Nevertheless, by what reasoning does he believe this?
| Perfect knowledge is impossible, but persuasive argument
| is not.
| noahtallen wrote:
| I haven't watched the content OP is mentioning, but Linus
| has a lot of industry connections so it seems very
| believable he'd be able to get in touch with someone who
| knows more about the situation.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| The disclaimer is there on the beta firmware pages on
| archive.org from a year ago, meaning that it was a general
| policy for beta firmware that had been in place for some
| time rather than something added specifically for this
| particular beta.
| LegitShady wrote:
| >working on removing the disclaimer
|
| This is a sentence on a website. If they wanted it would be
| gone in 5 minutes. You don't need to "work on it".
| pitaj wrote:
| I assume it's automatically shown for every beta version,
| so removing it for a single beta release requires some
| actual technical work.
| IX-103 wrote:
| You clearly never have worked in a large company. Changing
| a simple word can take weeks before it even goes to the
| translation team. Changing a disclaimer involves legal so
| expect a month of committee meetings before anything new is
| proposed.
| blihp wrote:
| That's only when a mid-level or lower person/group wants
| to make a change. If it comes from the C-level, it gets
| done very quickly.
| thewebcount wrote:
| A friend told me this story: He works for a large company
| as a software developer. He made a PR to change a
| compiler setting. It was rejected because the build team
| believed it would cause them to have to add more machines
| to the build fleet, and they hadn't met with the finance
| team to discuss that, yet. I wouldn't have thought that
| changing a compiler setting would require capital
| expenditures, but here we are.
| LegitShady wrote:
| I work for an extremely large organization. All it takes
| is someone in higher levels to decide this has to be
| dealt with now. The working on it tells you that
| leadership doesn't really care.
| serf wrote:
| that sentence on a website is an indicator of internal
| corporate policy -- it's not the policy itself.
|
| things must change internally before you express to the
| public that the change has occurred.
|
| Just because one can open notepad.exe and delete a line in
| five minutes doesn't indicate that that's the speed of
| business.
| bastardoperator wrote:
| You do understand that this drama is for enabling them to get
| more views? Dude literally has two side by side mountains of
| free asus gear and is crying. The white motherboard, he doesn't
| say he bought it, he says he "requested" it and goes on to cry
| that his request for free shit wasn't handled properly. I ended
| up blocking his channel because sensationalist BS on youtube
| needs to die.
| MrGilbert wrote:
| I do understand that there are channels out there doing drama
| for the sake of drama. I do understand that, after over 6
| years of following now, JayzTwoCents and especially
| GamersNexus are no such channels. Furthermore, I do
| understand that if you have a business relationship with a
| sponsor, you request products which you will then show on
| your channel for the sake of reviewing. You are not getting
| it for free. Companies do get a review or visibility in
| return. That's how I do understand "sponsoring" and
| "marketing". So do you?
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| > Companies do get a review or visibility in return.
|
| They get a _favorable_ review or they cut the channel off.
| This is how media centered around consumable gear has
| always worked. Honest players aren 't given early access or
| any at all so as to diminish their influence.
| [deleted]
| xbar wrote:
| This is a good and healthy attitude to have and I do not
| want to diminish it. This is how I view all channels,
| generally.
|
| In this case, at this time, Gamers Nexus is pretty well
| respected as an entity that re-invests its success in
| increasing technical validation capability, and has been
| cut off more than once by vendors, leading to having to
| purchase its own hardware. They currently have my respect
| and trust on this motherboard topic.
|
| Jayz2Cents? His content is just not the same, but he does
| have a genuinely consumer-focused attitude, though.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| Which is why Steve/Gamers Nexus often has to buy hardware
| to review on their own dollar. They're not the least bit
| shy about being critical when it's called for, which has
| landed them on the blacklists of some hardware
| manufacturers.
| bastardoperator wrote:
| How can I expect take any reviewer seriously when they're
| getting paid by the people they're reviewing? It sounds
| like the guy in this video didn't get a sponsorship
| agreement and went scorched earth. I can at least respect
| Steve to some degree despite his constant negativity,
| that he will say what he feels regardless. I don't alway
| agree with the doom and gloom, but that's his style and
| it seems to work for him.
|
| I could understand this Jay person being with upset with
| Asus if they had some skin in the game but getting upset
| about free merchandize is outlandish, especially when
| you're requesting gear to essentially give away which is
| exactly what he mentions doing. The level of entitlement
| is off the charts. I'm also unsure why he mentioned the
| box having all sorts of labels from China on it.
|
| Here's the real irony. Just weeks ago this youtuber built
| themselves a rig with a 7950X3D, and given all the
| offerings available, they chose Asus. He even uses
| language in his rant to describe Asus as "seemingly
| solid". So the question is, what is this really about?
| Throw73849 wrote:
| This guy has way more credibility than regular gaming
| "journalists"!
| tpmx wrote:
| 0.02 > 0.01
| bastardoperator wrote:
| He's not that guy pal...
| Throw73849 wrote:
| [flagged]
| r3trohack3r wrote:
| > this is beta, install on your own risk, this will void your
| warranty
|
| I've seen an increasing number of products I own prompt me to
| join a beta program that, if accepted, voids the warranty of
| the device.
|
| I help them vet early features before they roll them out to all
| of their users and, in exchange, they... ask me to let them
| maybe brick my device at my expense?
|
| Who agrees to these terms?
| imachine1980_ wrote:
| if not maybe expode, whit asus at least you are not safe
| -\\_('_')_/-, but maybe you have your pc back.
| Khaine wrote:
| This sounds exactly why software companies need to have strict
| liability. Can you imagine a hardware/software combo that blows
| up something you own is acceptable?
| doikor wrote:
| There is an earlier non beta BIOS that has the voltage limit
| correctly applied. The beta one has a buggy AGESA version that
| AMD already withdrew.
|
| (Well at least for my tuf gaming x670e-plus wifi)
| MrGilbert wrote:
| I have been out of the hardware loop for quite a while now.
| The referenced Beta BIOS in the GN video (the first link) is
| from May 2nd, and Steve claims that the voltage is still too
| high, as it is the boards task to set the correct VSOC
| setpoint, as the EXPO profile doesn't have one per
| definition.
|
| (Only half valid knowledge, just reiterating what I saw)
| Dwedit wrote:
| Just wait until Windows Update automatically rolls out a beta
| BIOS update to every customer.
| so-and-so wrote:
| Asus used to be a great company run by great engineers, but in
| the last couple of years their motherboards have become terrible.
| By far the worst of the big 4.
| gumballindie wrote:
| I updated my motherboard with a latest bios version and any os
| i tried just crashed. All sorts of weird errors. Reverted and
| all worked fine (fine for an asus board means that it sometimes
| doesn't post). I'd stay away from their motherboards.
| ibitto wrote:
| Is the term "big 4" for motherboard manufacturers commonly used
| to refer to ASRock, Asus, Gigabyte, and MSI, like it is for the
| big 4 accounting firms?
| blagie wrote:
| Who is considered good right now? Asus was my go-to brand for
| quality, but I haven't looked in a decade or more.
|
| I'm glad to pay a modest premium for reliability. I'd like
| parts which are well-tested, use high-quality capacitors, and
| have basic safety features (like over-current / over-voltage
| protection on power supplies).
|
| What I'd really like is a review site which steps through the
| engineering of things like motherboards and power supplies,
| tests things like short circuits on the output, and checks
| which passives are used and quality of things like solder
| joints.
|
| Most of this stuff isn't expensive.
| kiririn wrote:
| Supermicro if you can find anywhere stocking their boards
| borissk wrote:
| MSI has by far the best BIOS team.
|
| AsRock has the best technical support.
| ziml77 wrote:
| That's good to know. I had bad experiences with MSI
| hardware a decade ago so I didn't go back to them. I will
| try their boards the next time I upgrade
| morjom wrote:
| I can only recommend TechPowerup, Tom's Hardware and
| Buildzoid for Motherboard stuff. Those are the ones I check
| out. I think TPU also has PSU review?
| MrGilbert wrote:
| Asrock was so annoyed being called out as "the mainboards to
| avoid", that they stepped up their game quite a lot. Their
| products are quite decent.
| raincole wrote:
| Fun fact: Asrock was a subsidiary* of ASUS, and its purpose
| was to specifically produce cheap but worse motherboards.
|
| (Just a random fun fact, not implying its product quality
| now)
|
| *EDIT: I mean ASUS funded it and owned it by the time. I'm
| not sure if "subsidiary" is the correct legal term here.
| faeyanpiraat wrote:
| Do you have a reference for that?
| LegitShady wrote:
| Its sort of in their wikipedia. Pegasus was the
| production arm of asustek, was spun off into their own
| company, but asus is still the largest single shareholder
| but doesn't have a majority ownership. Pegasus owns
| Asrock.
| simpleintheory wrote:
| Did you mean Pegatron?
| LegitShady wrote:
| autocorrect does
| LegitShady wrote:
| asrock hasn't been a subsidiary of ASUS for 20+ years,
| but its complicated because they're owned by Pegasus.
| Pegasus was created in a restructering of AsusTek, so its
| hard to say whether or not asus still owns them or not
| but at arms length. They're both companies that were spun
| off but the corporate structure is complicated.
| raincole wrote:
| Yes, you're right. My use of "subsidiary" might not be
| legally correct here. I meant ASUS founded ASRock and
| owned it.
| LegitShady wrote:
| and pegatron owns asrock, and asus is still the largest
| single shareholder in pegatron. so does asus own asrock?
| not entirely, not directly, but sort of.
| faeyanpiraat wrote:
| Asrock was great 10 years ago, so if they are even better
| now, then that's great.
| xbar wrote:
| I agree completely. I replaced a 2015-era Asus Intel board with
| a 2021-era Asus Intel board of the same general product line
| (Prime) and found a great many deficiencies relative to their
| prior product. I had even moved "up" from the basic entry in
| the line. Many hassles and several missing features later, I am
| convinced not to purchase Asus again.
| 3np wrote:
| So who's better? Shopped around for ITX system and it seemed
| that if I wanted half-responsible firmware updates I'd have to
| get a SuperMicro and they don't really have what I had in mind.
| benatkin wrote:
| MSI, for one.
|
| Normally, successful hardware companies are very good.
| da768 wrote:
| As much as I tried to believe in Asus' reputation in the past
| 20 years, I'm pretty much done with them.
|
| 2 of 2 mainboards (TUF and Maximus series) with random reboot
| issues, 1 of 2 GPUs with firmware issues causing BSODs, 1 of 2
| routers (high-end models) with power supply failure problems
| and sometimes corrupting settings on reboot.
| samhuk wrote:
| My only reason for buying an ASUS motherboard was because, for
| a while, they had (as far as my research went a couple years
| ago) a complete monopoly on Thunderbolt 3-compatible AMD
| motherboard (ASUS ProArt Creator, IIRC?)
|
| Apart from that, tempted to agree.
| m-p-3 wrote:
| It may not be "illegal" to buy positive reviews, but it
| definitely undermine the trustworthiness of their whole brand if
| they do.
|
| I'll definitely stay clear of their product for the near future
| if they undervalue their product so much that they feel inclined
| to "cheat" their way back. Trust is hard to build and so easy to
| lose.
| Havoc wrote:
| Asus is on a roll this week
| gigatexal wrote:
| Welp never buying Asus. I guess it's MSI from now on.
| blibble wrote:
| right, so now any positive reviews about any and all Asus
| products are automatically suspect and should be disregarded
|
| that was easy to deal with
| scotty79 wrote:
| Why exactly is it not legal?
| BonoboIO wrote:
| Gigabyte was and is my Mainboard Company. I never had a bad
| example and never had to RMA anything. Maybe I m lucky.
| varelse wrote:
| [dead]
| anovikov wrote:
| It is of course not legal, but practiced by everyone nonetheless.
| I mean, even 20 years ago all "awards" and other nonsense were
| just paid, different award figurines from different "review"
| sites arriving with the same sender address... Like after 20
| years on a dating sites one may forget that they were supposed to
| pretend that they were looking for the "true love", people can
| forget it here too... Not even sure these lies are a benefit to
| anyone anymore, like people aren't dumb. It's more of a ritual
| dance.
| necovek wrote:
| But it is legal.
|
| The obligation is on the reviewer to highlight they've been paid
| for a review, otherwise they are illegally misleading their
| readers.
|
| Whether that's moral is another thing.
| gnopgnip wrote:
| Almost all new car reviews are paid. It often includes flying
| reviewers out and paying $500+ a night for their hotel
| bgidley wrote:
| It may not be legal depending on how it's done - this was Asus
| UK and the rules are on
| https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/online-reviews-an...
|
| The UK Government are also in processing tightening this up...
| c0m wrote:
| I suspect the CSA's new 'rip-off tip-off' campaign would be
| interested in this!
|
| https://ripoff-tipoff.campaign.gov.uk/
| mrweasel wrote:
| It's just always surprising when companies think that legality
| and morality are the same thing. Either they didn't expect to
| get caught, or they see nothing wrong with it, that latter
| being worse.
|
| The majority of companies that gets punished by consumers these
| days seem to me to be those who think that just because
| something is legal, then it's without consequences.
| orra wrote:
| You're right that paid reviews may be legal _if_ they 're
| clearly advertised as adverts, as opposed to framed as
| impartial reviews. But walking that line is fine, right,
| because people expect reviews to be impartial.
|
| Regardless, the legal obligation[1] to transparently advertise
| this is on the firm, not (just) the bought reviewer. IIRC the
| Advertising Standards Authority recently had a case on a social
| media paid promotion, which reinforced this. Regardless, IMO
| the statute is quite clear the obligation is on the firm.
|
| [1] https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2008/1277/part/2/made
| jeroenhd wrote:
| I'm not so sure about that:
|
| > Don't commission third parties to write fake reviews - you
| may be liable for their actions
|
| https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/online-reviews-an...
|
| With proper disclosure there may be some leeway, but I wouldn't
| just assume paying someone for a fake review is legal. UK
| advertising laws can be very strict in some cases (and
| rightfully so, in my opinion).
| CWuestefeld wrote:
| I don't know UK law, but at least in the US, there's a clear
| difference between "illegal" and "liable". There's a _lot_ of
| stuff that 's perfectly legal, but that I may be liable for.
| [deleted]
| throwaway038519 wrote:
| The enshittification (of ASUS in this instance) continues,
| unabated [0].
|
| [0] https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-platforms-cory-doctorow/
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(page generated 2023-05-13 23:01 UTC)