There's a sliding scale of badness here. The emissions cheating (it wasn't just VW, incidentally; they were just the first uncovered. Fiat-Chrysler, Mercedes, GM and BMW were also caught doing it, with suspicions about others) was straight-up fraud.
It used to be common for graphics drivers to outright cheat on benchmarks (the actual image produced would not be the same as it would have been if a benchmark had not been detected); this was arguably, fraud.
It used to be common for mobile phone manufacturers to allow the SoC to operate in a thermal mode that was never available to real users when it detected a benchmark was being used. This is still, IMO, kinda fraud-y.
Optimisation for common benchmark cases where the thing still actually _works_, and where the optimisation is available to normal users where applicable, is less egregious, though, still, IMO, Not Great.
It used to be common for graphics drivers to outright cheat on benchmarks (the actual image produced would not be the same as it would have been if a benchmark had not been detected); this was arguably, fraud.
It used to be common for mobile phone manufacturers to allow the SoC to operate in a thermal mode that was never available to real users when it detected a benchmark was being used. This is still, IMO, kinda fraud-y.
Optimisation for common benchmark cases where the thing still actually _works_, and where the optimisation is available to normal users where applicable, is less egregious, though, still, IMO, Not Great.