Samsung Electronics: "Galaxy GOS Ads Were Not Deceptive"... Announces Lawsuit Challenging FTC Surcharge

FTC imposes 20 billion won surcharge over "deceptive advertising"
"We regret the decision to deem settings from a particular point in time deceptive advertising"

Samsung Electronics has announced that it will file a lawsuit challenging the Fair Trade Commission’s decision to impose a surcharge over advertisements for its “Game Optimizing Service” (GOS) on certain Galaxy products from four years ago, which the commission found to be deceptive under the Act on Fair Labeling and Advertising.

On October 27, Samsung Electronics said through Jipyong, the law firm representing it, “We participated fully in the Fair Trade Commission’s review and actively cooperated by explaining the facts and providing materials,” adding, “We find it difficult to agree with the commission’s conclusion.”

Three models in the Samsung Galaxy S21 series. Yonhap News.

It added, “After receiving the Fair Trade Commission’s written resolution and reviewing its specific contents, we plan to actively demonstrate through legal proceedings that the advertisements in this case did not violate the Act on Fair Labeling and Advertising.”

The Fair Trade Commission said that day it had decided to impose a corrective order and a provisional surcharge of approximately 20 billion won on Samsung Electronics for unfair advertising practices.

The commission found that Samsung Electronics heavily promoted the gaming performance of its devices while selling the Galaxy S21 and S22 series and the Galaxy Tab S8 series from January 2021 to March 2022. However, when consumers launched certain high-spec game apps, the “GOS individual policy” was designed to take effect immediately regardless of the device’s condition, including its temperature. As a result, the commission said, the maximum operating speeds of the central processing unit (CPU) and graphics processing unit (GPU), which are core components of the devices, were forcibly reduced to as low as 30% of their original maximum performance.

The commission also found that Samsung Electronics violated the Act on Fair Labeling and Advertising (Article 3(1)(2), deceptive labeling or advertising) by advertising with phrases such as “the fastest 5-nanometer AP ever in a Galaxy” and “the ultimate mobile gaming experience” without informing consumers of these facts in advance.

Samsung Electronics said, “GOS is an optimization feature designed to improve users’ gaming experience. Managing heat and sustaining performance are common challenges faced by all smart-device manufacturers, and GOS is the result of Samsung Electronics’ efforts to address them.”

It added, “We find it difficult to accept the conclusion that a feature that adjusts device operations to provide an optimal user experience constitutes deceptive advertising simply because the specific way it optimizes performance was not included in the advertisements.”

Samsung Electronics said, “Contrary to the Fair Trade Commission’s assessment, the individual optimization settings for certain games were also normal settings that adjusted device operations to deliver optimal gaming performance.” It explained, “The individual optimization at issue imposed a speed cap, while a game was running, at a level higher than the typical AP clock speed, and applied only to a small number of games for which high heat generation had actually been confirmed.”

Samsung Electronics said, “One important aspect of the gaming experience is for images on screen to continue smoothly without interruption throughout gameplay. This is represented by the number of frames displayed per second (Frames Per Second, FPS) and their stability.”

It added, “Measured by the number of frames per second and their stability, Galaxy devices can deliver better gaming performance with GOS’s individual optimization settings. At the very least, they can maintain similar levels of gaming performance for longer at lower temperatures.”

Finally, Samsung Electronics said, “This penalty concerns GOS as it existed four years ago, not the current version, and the individual optimization settings that were the subject of the action are no longer in use.”

It added, “When the S22 was launched, consumers made various requests regarding GOS, and Samsung Electronics listened to them and provided a GOS update in March 2022. We regret this decision to treat settings from a particular point in time, taken out of software that has continued to evolve through ongoing communication with consumers, as deceptive advertising, even though no sanctions have been imposed or rulings recognizing Samsung Electronics’ legal liability have been issued anywhere in Korea or abroad since then.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.