Samsung Electronics' Galaxy S22 Ultra. [Samsung Electronics YouTube]
Samsung Electronics' Galaxy S22 Ultra. [Samsung Electronics YouTube]

Samsung Electronics said it will challenge a provisional 20 billion won ($15.1 million) fine imposed by the Korea Fair Trade Commission over allegedly deceptive advertising tied to the Galaxy Game Optimizing Service, or GOS.

Samsung said it cannot accept the Fair Trade Commission's finding that its advertisements were deceptive simply because they did not spell out the specific mechanics of how the optimization feature worked.

Jipyong, the law firm representing Samsung Electronics, said in a statement Tuesday that the company "regrets this decision, which singles out the settings at a specific point in time from software that has continuously evolved through ongoing communication with consumers and treats them as deceptive advertising." The firm said Samsung "will actively demonstrate through litigation that the advertising in question does not violate the Act on Fair Labeling and Advertising."

Samsung said the individual optimization settings applied to certain games were a normal configuration designed to coordinate device operation for the best possible gaming performance.

"GOS is an optimization feature designed to improve users' gaming experience," Jipyong said. "Heat management and sustained performance are challenges shared by every smartphone manufacturer, and GOS is the product of Samsung Electronics' efforts to address them."

The firm added that it "cannot accept the finding that a feature coordinating device operation for the best user experience constitutes deceptive advertising merely because the specific workings of the optimization were not included in the advertisement."

Jipyong also said the Fair Trade Commission "only cited the ratio of the clock-speed cap relative to the maximum AP clock speed, without disclosing the actual impact of that setting on the real gaming experience — including metrics such as frames per second."

Samsung Galaxy S22 series. [Samsung Electronics]
Samsung Galaxy S22 series. [Samsung Electronics]

Samsung also stressed that the sanctions target GOS as it existed four years ago, not the current version of the software.

"The individual optimization settings subject to this action are no longer in use," Jipyong said. "There was significant consumer feedback about GOS when the S22 launched, and Samsung Electronics listened to those concerns and released a GOS update in March 2022."

The firm added that "to this day, no sanctions or rulings finding Samsung Electronics legally liable have been issued anywhere, at home or abroad."

Meanwhile, Samsung Electronics had made GOS mandatory and non-removable when it launched the Galaxy S21 and S22 series and the Galaxy Tab S8 series between January 2021 and March 2022.

After controversy erupted over claims that GOS was artificially throttling device performance, Samsung Electronics released a software update in March 2022 that lifted the caps on maximum CPU and GPU clock speeds.


sjpark@heraldcorp.com