Attacks on negative review of Lumia phone traced to Nokia, Msoft —report

An India-based website's unfavorable review of the Lumia 800, the mobile phone produced by Nokia and Microsoft, elicited several comments criticizing the review - which were traced to the two tech giants.

 

Making matters odder was that the review was based not on a hands-on experience with the phone but merely on the phone's specifications, the UK's The Guardian reported.

 

Launched some months back, the Lumia 800 uses hardware by Nokia that runs on Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 software.

 

In the Moneylife.in review, reviewer Yogesh Sapkale branded the Lumia 800 a "noPhone" but also admitted having no hands-on experience with the gadget.

 

"Before I start, let me confess that this review is completely based on technical specifications and not a hands-on experience. Although, Nokia is not leaving a single stone unturned through publicity events in order to grab attention towards its’re-entry' into the smartphone category, it is the technical specifications that makes the Lumia 800 an 'also ran' in the race," Sapkale wrote.

 

Sapkale concluded the review with a dismissing "it is nowhere near the niche product. In fact compared with iPhone."

 

As expected, the review elicited harsh criticism questioning Sapkale for "reviewning a phone you haven't even seen."

 

But one commenter who criticized Sapkale for his "crap review" and went on to laud the Lumia 800 was found to have posted his comment from the IP address 192.100.117.41, which The Guardian report said belongs to Nokia.

 

Another commenter, "Aditya Agrawal," wrote consumers care not about technical specifications but the actual performance "in real-life." A trace of the post yielded the IP address 207.46.55.31, which The Guardian report said "apparently belongs to Microsoft."

 

No-win

 

Nobody has come out of the episode looking good, The Guardian report said.

 

"Sapkale was accused of breaking his own site's privacy policy by posting the IP and email addresses of the commenters, while the commenting duo's failure to declare any interest looked, at best, like astroturfing," it said. — TJD, GMA News