5 ms·

Title is misleading. The original team behind Honey has created a new company that is doing this and not Honey itself which is owned by Paypal.

tantalor 2y ago
Do we know when Honey started stealing affiliate links? Was it after the acquisition?
- kristofferR 2y ago
  Before, this is how ALL coupon sites/extensions have worked for decades. I'm frankly baffled it weren't more common knowledge, despite being common sense, before the MegaLag video. Did people really think that sites like retailmenot.com or wethrift.com make you open tabs to the shop you're searching for coupons for before you can see the coupon code just for fun?? Affiliate code stuffing is the coupon provider business model, it's not Honey-exclusive at all. I'd be surprised if you find a coupon site/extension that haven't always done that.
  - josephg 2y ago
    Utter scumbags. The google chrome & Firefox extension stores should ban the lot of ‘em.
    - throwaway48476 2y ago
      Honestly the developers should be banned by name from using the Firefox extension store. So they don't come back with yet another scam.
  - Suppafly 2y ago
    Honestly I knew that that coupon websites were adding their affiliate link to links from their websites, but it never occurred to me that the toolbars would be stripping and replacing affiliate links from actual links you were clicking yourself. I wouldn't mind if they were transparent about what they were doing or gave you the option to substitute your own code specifically. I'm sure there are a lot of situations where I've clicked an affiliate link to check something out and then that affiliate got credit for other things I've purchased hours or days later. I'd really like a toolbar that let me modify or block the affiliate code from those links.
    - kristofferR 2y ago
      On Firefox you could use a separate container for your coupon site visits, but do the buying in another container.
      - Suppafly 2y ago
        When I'm actually looking for coupons I tend to use an incognito window, but there are times when I'm clicking a link from reddit to see something someone has mentioned and then later go to the same site and buy something I was planning on buying and in those cases if the original link had an affiliate code, I'm pretty sure they end up getting credit for the later purchase that they had no involvement with.
  - tommica 2y ago
    Oh... This should have been obvious, but I only realized it from this comment.
  - ToucanLoucan 2y ago
    In my defense I assumed they were a user data-mining scam, not a coupon code scam. Still never used it and told people not to whenever they asked, but, whatcha gonna do.
  - pseudo0 2y ago
    It is pretty funny how the MegaLag video claimed it was hard to find discussion of this online, and cited a HN thread from over five years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21588663 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21588663 I suppose it's easy for us to forget how an average person really doesn't think about how cookies and referral links work.
    - Alex-Programs 2y ago
      Yeah, as I watched the video all I could think was "what the fuck did you think they were doing?". I'm surprised technical youtube channels were caught by it, although maybe they did the calculation that the money Honey was paying was worth more than the affiliate sales they'd lose. There's also value to getting that money immediately, rather than at some unknown point in the future. The only part that seemed uncouth to me was setting the referral code when they hadn't actually found any coupons, and collaborating with retailers.
      - mschuster91 2y ago
        > I'm surprised technical youtube channels were caught by it, although maybe they did the calculation that the money Honey was paying was worth more than the affiliate sales they'd lose. ... and helping to screw everyone else over in the process. That is what makes advertising for Honey so unethical.
        chgs 2y ago
        From watching the original video sounds like that’s exactly what LinusMedia did. Which doesn’t surprise me, I’ve always been amazed by how many people like that channel.
      - Dylan16807 2y ago
        > as I watched the video all I could think was "what the fuck did you think they were doing?". Well, not screwing over their partners and customers? They didn't have to overwrite existing affiliate codes to make lots of money. And the stuff you list in your last sentence is a really big deal.
  - manquer 2y ago
    The main point is not so much their busines/industry model, but how they used creators to promote it . isn’t it egregious when you make the people who are you stealing affiliate money from to promote the same thing ?
  - wink 2y ago
    > I'm frankly baffled it weren't more common knowledge I think the last time I actively investigated how to save pennies with these online coupon things was the 90s when I was a teenager and I suppose that's true for more people.
  - BurpIntruder 2y ago
    100% this. Until there is a mechanism to disambiguate between first and last click referrals, it will continue to be an issue.
    - joe5150 2y ago
      I'm curious why Amazon doesn't show you in some obvious way what affiliate code your purchase is linked to, if any. I'm imagining something like the way they used to display your Amazon Smile charity if you used that option. Perhaps they've guessed that it would shock some people to learn how often they inadvertently use affiliate links and they would be discouraged from shopping or find some way to disable the codes.
      - Ekaros 2y ago
        Or even better give you option to take the affiliate cut as discount. Which would be win for everyone. Affiliate spammers would get knowledge that people gave them money out of charity. Shop would sell more as things are cheaper. And buyers would get cheaper products.
        krisoft 2y ago
        Wait what? :) Are you proposing that amazon should have a “give me a discount on my purchase” check-box on their checkout page? Why would anyone not click that? And if people would click it why would anyone share affiliate links of amazon? That would completely undermine the incentive structure of the whole structure. > Which would be win for everyone. Except of course the content creators. It would not be a win for them.
        Ekaros 2y ago
        They would still get cut from those who choose to support them this way. Rest of the people would get discount. There seems to be plenty of people who click affiliate links so creators get money. Those same people would still give the cut to them wouldn't they? Or then just ban the whole scam.
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    I figured they simply had affiliate links themselves, or made deals with companies in order to get customers who normally wouldn't buy at full price. It just seems illegal to replace an affiliate link like. I guess the courts will determine that.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - beAbU 2y ago
    All the YT creators are making a stink about this because surprise surprise, honey was stealing from them, not their viewers. It's one of those open secrets that most youtube-peddled services are predatory in some way, and the creators happily kept pushing them on to their viewers because money talks. Now it turns out Honey is hurting their own bottom lines, so of course they all get on their moral high horses.
- benjaminl 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - mcny 2y ago
    > The only thing that I never understood was why brands would allow Honey to be an affiliate. Why would they want to pay Honey any money when Honey doesn’t originate any traffi? One YouTube channel, theo dot gg has a conspiracy theory about it which is honey: 1. amassed a huge (rabid) user base 2. Offered "protection" to companies The evidence presented is Amazon dot com affiliates walk on eggshells to avoid breaking Toss that Honey completely tramples on so at the very least honey is not subject to the same tos as everybody. However, Amazon dot com is very aware of honey evidenced by advisory warnings on Amazon dot com website from a few years ago. So I think basically the strategy here was: 1. Pay a lot of money to buy a user base 2. Offer protection to stores if they do certain things 3. Deliberately don't give the best offers to users if the stores pay this protection money, wreck the store somehow(?) if they don't 4. Profit
    - happymellon 2y ago
      > However, Amazon dot com is very aware of honey evidenced by advisory warnings on Amazon dot com website from a few years ago. I missed this, do you have any more information on it?
      - mcny 2y ago
        Here is an article from January 2020 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-10/amazon-tells-shoppers-paypal-s-4-billion-honey-is-security-risk https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-10/amazon-te... --- PayPal Holdings Inc. made a big bet in November with its $4 billion acquisition of Honey, a web browser extension that helps online shoppers find the lowest prices. Now Amazon.com Inc. is warning customers not to use the tool. Shortly before Christmas, Amazon said Honey posed a security risk, which was reported Thursday by Wired. The warning perplexed some online shopping experts since the tool has been available for several years and Amazon makes no similar warnings about other browser extensions such as price tracker camelcamelcamel.com.
Brian_K_White 2y ago
Title says team behind honey. (was it changed?)

tantalor 2y ago

Do we know when Honey started stealing affiliate links? Was it after the acquisition?

kristofferR 2y ago
Before, this is how ALL coupon sites/extensions have worked for decades. I'm frankly baffled it weren't more common knowledge, despite being common sense, before the MegaLag video. Did people really think that sites like retailmenot.com or wethrift.com make you open tabs to the shop you're searching for coupons for before you can see the coupon code just for fun?? Affiliate code stuffing is the coupon provider business model, it's not Honey-exclusive at all. I'd be surprised if you find a coupon site/extension that haven't always done that.
- josephg 2y ago
  Utter scumbags. The google chrome & Firefox extension stores should ban the lot of ‘em.
  - throwaway48476 2y ago
    Honestly the developers should be banned by name from using the Firefox extension store. So they don't come back with yet another scam.
- Suppafly 2y ago
  Honestly I knew that that coupon websites were adding their affiliate link to links from their websites, but it never occurred to me that the toolbars would be stripping and replacing affiliate links from actual links you were clicking yourself. I wouldn't mind if they were transparent about what they were doing or gave you the option to substitute your own code specifically. I'm sure there are a lot of situations where I've clicked an affiliate link to check something out and then that affiliate got credit for other things I've purchased hours or days later. I'd really like a toolbar that let me modify or block the affiliate code from those links.
  - kristofferR 2y ago
    On Firefox you could use a separate container for your coupon site visits, but do the buying in another container.
    - Suppafly 2y ago
      When I'm actually looking for coupons I tend to use an incognito window, but there are times when I'm clicking a link from reddit to see something someone has mentioned and then later go to the same site and buy something I was planning on buying and in those cases if the original link had an affiliate code, I'm pretty sure they end up getting credit for the later purchase that they had no involvement with.
- tommica 2y ago
  Oh... This should have been obvious, but I only realized it from this comment.
- ToucanLoucan 2y ago
  In my defense I assumed they were a user data-mining scam, not a coupon code scam. Still never used it and told people not to whenever they asked, but, whatcha gonna do.
- pseudo0 2y ago
  It is pretty funny how the MegaLag video claimed it was hard to find discussion of this online, and cited a HN thread from over five years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21588663 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21588663 I suppose it's easy for us to forget how an average person really doesn't think about how cookies and referral links work.
  - Alex-Programs 2y ago
    Yeah, as I watched the video all I could think was "what the fuck did you think they were doing?". I'm surprised technical youtube channels were caught by it, although maybe they did the calculation that the money Honey was paying was worth more than the affiliate sales they'd lose. There's also value to getting that money immediately, rather than at some unknown point in the future. The only part that seemed uncouth to me was setting the referral code when they hadn't actually found any coupons, and collaborating with retailers.
    - mschuster91 2y ago
      > I'm surprised technical youtube channels were caught by it, although maybe they did the calculation that the money Honey was paying was worth more than the affiliate sales they'd lose. ... and helping to screw everyone else over in the process. That is what makes advertising for Honey so unethical.
      - chgs 2y ago
        From watching the original video sounds like that’s exactly what LinusMedia did. Which doesn’t surprise me, I’ve always been amazed by how many people like that channel.
    - Dylan16807 2y ago
      > as I watched the video all I could think was "what the fuck did you think they were doing?". Well, not screwing over their partners and customers? They didn't have to overwrite existing affiliate codes to make lots of money. And the stuff you list in your last sentence is a really big deal.
- manquer 2y ago
  The main point is not so much their busines/industry model, but how they used creators to promote it . isn’t it egregious when you make the people who are you stealing affiliate money from to promote the same thing ?
- wink 2y ago
  > I'm frankly baffled it weren't more common knowledge I think the last time I actively investigated how to save pennies with these online coupon things was the 90s when I was a teenager and I suppose that's true for more people.
- BurpIntruder 2y ago
  100% this. Until there is a mechanism to disambiguate between first and last click referrals, it will continue to be an issue.
  - joe5150 2y ago
    I'm curious why Amazon doesn't show you in some obvious way what affiliate code your purchase is linked to, if any. I'm imagining something like the way they used to display your Amazon Smile charity if you used that option. Perhaps they've guessed that it would shock some people to learn how often they inadvertently use affiliate links and they would be discouraged from shopping or find some way to disable the codes.
    - Ekaros 2y ago
      Or even better give you option to take the affiliate cut as discount. Which would be win for everyone. Affiliate spammers would get knowledge that people gave them money out of charity. Shop would sell more as things are cheaper. And buyers would get cheaper products.
      - krisoft 2y ago
        Wait what? :) Are you proposing that amazon should have a “give me a discount on my purchase” check-box on their checkout page? Why would anyone not click that? And if people would click it why would anyone share affiliate links of amazon? That would completely undermine the incentive structure of the whole structure. > Which would be win for everyone. Except of course the content creators. It would not be a win for them.
        Ekaros 2y ago
        They would still get cut from those who choose to support them this way. Rest of the people would get discount. There seems to be plenty of people who click affiliate links so creators get money. Those same people would still give the cut to them wouldn't they? Or then just ban the whole scam.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  I figured they simply had affiliate links themselves, or made deals with companies in order to get customers who normally wouldn't buy at full price. It just seems illegal to replace an affiliate link like. I guess the courts will determine that.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- beAbU 2y ago
  All the YT creators are making a stink about this because surprise surprise, honey was stealing from them, not their viewers. It's one of those open secrets that most youtube-peddled services are predatory in some way, and the creators happily kept pushing them on to their viewers because money talks. Now it turns out Honey is hurting their own bottom lines, so of course they all get on their moral high horses.
benjaminl 2y ago
[flagged]
- mcny 2y ago
  > The only thing that I never understood was why brands would allow Honey to be an affiliate. Why would they want to pay Honey any money when Honey doesn’t originate any traffi? One YouTube channel, theo dot gg has a conspiracy theory about it which is honey: 1. amassed a huge (rabid) user base 2. Offered "protection" to companies The evidence presented is Amazon dot com affiliates walk on eggshells to avoid breaking Toss that Honey completely tramples on so at the very least honey is not subject to the same tos as everybody. However, Amazon dot com is very aware of honey evidenced by advisory warnings on Amazon dot com website from a few years ago. So I think basically the strategy here was: 1. Pay a lot of money to buy a user base 2. Offer protection to stores if they do certain things 3. Deliberately don't give the best offers to users if the stores pay this protection money, wreck the store somehow(?) if they don't 4. Profit
  - happymellon 2y ago
    > However, Amazon dot com is very aware of honey evidenced by advisory warnings on Amazon dot com website from a few years ago. I missed this, do you have any more information on it?
    - mcny 2y ago
      Here is an article from January 2020 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-10/amazon-tells-shoppers-paypal-s-4-billion-honey-is-security-risk https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-10/amazon-te... --- PayPal Holdings Inc. made a big bet in November with its $4 billion acquisition of Honey, a web browser extension that helps online shoppers find the lowest prices. Now Amazon.com Inc. is warning customers not to use the tool. Shortly before Christmas, Amazon said Honey posed a security risk, which was reported Thursday by Wired. The warning perplexed some online shopping experts since the tool has been available for several years and Amazon makes no similar warnings about other browser extensions such as price tracker camelcamelcamel.com.

Brian_K_White 2y ago

Title says team behind honey. (was it changed?)