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Honey Scandal

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Henry Turberfield, 26

The popular browser extension Honey is a name that is widely recognized by younger audiences. The extension advertises itself as an add-on that will search the internet for coupons for online products. Honey became popular through their extensive marketing strategy of sponsoring big content creators, like Mr. Beast, Linus Tech Tips, and David Dobrick. It’s estimated that Honey spends around 10 million dollars each year advertising online. It seems like a great idea: trying to give the average American a break from big business prices. But how can Honey afford to spend 10 million on advertising each year? Some assumed that Honey would potentially sell your information to big corporations. Soon after this rumor started, Honey put in their terms and conditions that they don’t sell consumers’ information. So how does Honey make their money? The Honey Scandal is the sneakiest con in tech history.


Honey makes their money by manipulating the user’s cookies, or (information that websites store). Honey essentially steals cookies from affiliate marketing links. Every time a creator promotes a product, provides a link, and makes a sale, the creator earns a commission from that link. The promoted website knows who to pay for the referral by installing a cookie onto the user's device. This cookie is completely harmless; all it does is tell the website that you clicked on the link. This cookie will stay on your device for 30 days and then delete itself, just in case you like the product but want to buy it at a later date. Where does Honey fit into this? When the link is clicked, the affiliate cookie redirects the user to a PayPal (Honey’s parent company) affiliated link. On top of that, Honey will open a new tab in the top left, already minimized to avoid detection, refreshing the browser with the checkout site. In short, the commission that was originally supposed to go to the creator who promoted the product, is stolen by a third party.


It's an embezzlement.


Even if Honey doesn’t find any relevant coupons for the user, the commission on the product still gets transferred. Anyone who has downloaded Honey knows just how annoying it is: it’s constantly popping up. Any click Honey gets gives them an opportunity to steal the commission. Popular YouTuber MegaLag commented on this issue, “Imagine you’re at a department store ready to buy a TV. A salesman takes time taking you through all your options. You decide to buy, and he hands you his referral card. Right when you're about to pay, a sleazy salesman comes up telling you that he can save you money. As he searches for coupons, he switches the referral card with his own without you noticing.” This technique of stealing the commission right at the homestretch is incredibly sneaky.


Honey also has a system called “Honey Gold” that allows users to pay with Paypal on Honey. The user then gets rewards. These “rewards” are mere cents at a time and just another way for Honey to steal commission. And this isn’t even the tip of the iceberg.


Honey’s whole business model of finding coupons that people don’t know about hasn’t totally been a lie. Honey does actually search the web for coupons. Because secret coupons will inevitably be found by Honey, and companies can’t afford to give everyone 80% off, these companies try to partner with Honey. As a result, Honey agrees to not show the massive coupons, but this is all at a price. It’s like hush money but for online coupons. Companies partnered with Honey will show smaller coupons found on their site, trying to attract users to their site over other competitors.


The legality of the whole situation is pretty blurred. Legal Eagle, another Youtuber, has filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of the youtube community. In this, he claims that Honey is unfairly taking commission from creators “by unfairly applying last-click attribution.” And the Kristensen Law Group is also filing a class action by trying to prove that Honey’s actions are morally wrong. Honey’s lawyer group is quite large due to their parent company PayPal. These class actions may not settle or the company may just pay the creators and be done with the whole situation.


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