Pools and phones don’t play well together. | Image: Australia Competition and Consumer Commission / Samsung Australia
Samsung Australia has been ordered by the Federal Court to pay a $14 million (about $9.7 million USD) fine for a misleading marketing campaign, as spotted by PhoneArena. The ads in question suggested that some of its water-resistant phones could be used in pools and at beaches, which Samsung’s own website advises against.
The ads ran between March 2016 and October 2018, depicting Galaxy A-series, S7-series, and S8-series phones. They’re all rated IP68, which means you can fully submerge them in water for an extended amount of time — in this case, up to 30 minutes to a depth of 1.5 meters (about five feet). But that protection only extends to freshwater — saltwater and chlorinated pool water are a different matter.
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