South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission is nearing the end of its investigation into Samsung’s Game Optimizing Service (GOS) software in the Galaxy S22 series. The agency deemed it a “serious violation” that Samsung did not disclose to consumers that GOS significantly limited the processor and GPU while promising high performance.
Tests in Genshin Impact found that, with GOS enabled, processor performance fell to 46.8% of maximum capacity, while GPU performance dropped to 42.8%. Samsung argued that the software was used to manage temperature, power consumption and long-term gaming stability, while the regulator deemed the failure to disclose the limitations in the marketing of the Galaxy S21, S22 and Galaxy Tab S8 series misleading advertising.
The final decision will be issued on 14 October, and Samsung could face a fine of up to 47 million dollars.
Why it matters
The case raises the question of whether advertised performance on smartphones and tablets should be evaluated together with the extent to which the device is limited by software during use. The decision is important for consumers because it could establish a benchmark for how clearly these limitations must be explained in the Galaxy S21, S22 and Galaxy Tab S8 series, which were purchased with expectations of high performance. The distinction between Samsung’s explanations based on temperature, power consumption and long-term gaming stability and the agency’s assessment of misleading advertising lies at the center of the regulatory review. The key question that remains is how the scope of the violation will be defined in the final decision to be issued on 14 October and at what level any potential penalty will be imposed.
Background
Samsung is not a new name in the FikirPilot archive: we have published 11 articles mentioning the name in the past 90 days; the latest is dated 4 September 2026.