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You said "I've never used this extension", dismissingly, but it's not about who uses the extension... If you have served any affiliate link or promo code, Honey stole from you, even if you have never used the extension... TLDR: You should sign up to the class action!
What if an affiliate website owner, with no affiliation to Honey, discovers that their tracking code is being replaced when visitors click their links? If they never used Honey or agreed to its terms, could this be considered theft of commissions-not just from them, but from other sites as well? If Honey’s browser extension overrides tracking codes, could it be redirecting commissions from websites that never endorsed it? For instance, if you (TopMusicAttorney) endorsed a product on TH-cam and never used or endorsed honey and a viewer of your channel wants to buy what you endorsed but Honey overrode your affiliate link would that be considered illegal since you have no agreement or affiliation with Honey?
Just to be clear, it is not whether or not you have used the browser extension. It is whether or not you have used affiliate links or promo codes. You could have had commission money stolen from you even if you had never heard of Honey before last week.
and thats the really big issue, they might, possibly have buried small print so their promoters would have no protections, but random third parties would also be hit by this despite never saying the word honey, THATS where this escalates to awful
LegalEagle is also saying it could have affected adsense too, money creators would have gotten through ad revenue, because ads on TH-cam use the same tracking data to keep tabs on whose ads get clicked and result in sales (which Honey could snipe)
@@Much_Ado Definitely yes. People bid on ad slots on TH-cam based on how much of a return they think they are going to get on the Ad. With Honey around, they will think their return is much lower than it actually is, and therefore bid less for those slots.
They could have had agreements with companies like Impact or Commission Junction. That, however, wouldn't void any contract between affiliates/creators and these companies.
cookie stuffing is the term alot of people are comparing this too. A guy already served like 5 months in prison for pulling this same tactic on ebay. Apparently there are already laws against this type of behavior because its wire fraud. PayPal is gonna be in alot of trouble.
How so? Cookies are owned and controlled by any regular "Joe', if they agree to allow any program or service the right to modify them on their phone/computer then legally they can.
@bmc7434 Actually the way they did this = no. If they tell the user they do this yes. What they done is clearly overwrite of a data/electronic token. Without telling the user..
There's a key point that was no underlined, but was said in the Legal Eagle video. The fact that even if Honey does not find a coupon code, the mere interaction with the extension will hijack the attribution code. That to me makes no sense, you could argue that if the customer does get a coupon code maybe they wouldn't have made the purchase without it. But the fact that even with no coupon code they take the commission it's ridiculous. It's also important to note that regardless whether a given creator did not promote Honey his audience might still be using the extension and as a result they could very well be losing commissions through the same process.
and there might very well be coupons that have been givento honey. But the retailer is a partner with honey and told them to not allow any coupon codes. So now the retailer AND honey are screwing over the customer and their other affiliate.
They also partner with the retailer to make sure you don't get the best coupon code. It says "we found 10% off" when in reality its easy to find 20% yourself.
''Your honor, imagine being a judge. Then imagine that you had to go going through multiple years of law school, optional lessons, reading and learning. You get a position to practice your occupation and do your job. As you finally end your day at work and send the plaintiff and defendant home, another judge stands by the doorway and offers to check their papers. Your salary for the day belongs to him now. You get nada.'' But seriously this is a horrible situation. Not mentioned is also the potential reputation damage Honey is causing. How many sponsors have influencers lost for not being ''worth it''? If Honey poaches a commission then the sponsor won't see the contribution of the said creator. ''Well, we are dropping you from sponsorship, you aren't bringing us enough sales.'' - Sponsor ''Wait! I am though...I've gotten hundreds of comments of people saying they've brought stuff through my links.'' - Creator ''...Nope. Not seeing it. Bye!'' - Sponsor
16:52 "I have never used this browser extension" - this is not relevant and does not bar you from being impacted. You do not need to have any knowledge of, nor relationship with or to Honey. If you've ever had an affiliate relationship with *_any business,_* you are a valid target and potentially already a victim. Any user who already had Honey installed on their client, and with no relationship to you, may have inadvertently facilitated a cookie conversion from your affiliation to Honey's affiliation without your knowledge. Again, If you have ever had an affiliate sponsorship from *_any business, no matter how insignificant or disconnected,_* you may have already been swindled. Even if you've never even heard of Honey before, they can still steal from your commissions.
Yes! This is the main point of confusion these videos have. Especially the ones about TOS. Creators who have never had any relationship with Honey are affected!
@@Tenly2009 To be fair, most videos fails at making that clear, and a lawsuit isn't exactly made up of the clearest of language. But yes, it is problematic that she does nto understand she is in the class, if she has ever had any affiliate link or coupon code. At this point it has not been made clear if it also applies to ad-sense statistics, meaning that it is possible that any video-creator with ads on youtube may be part of the class.
on the other hand, the hole coupon game is used to collect data from the user. so the buisiness that honey is interfering with is pretty sammy to begin with.
Considering the incoming administration in the U.S. and its stance toward big business, I can almost guarantee you will see nothing from the U.S. government about this. It looks like it will be up to the EU (and the U.S. civil courts) to do anything.
"There's about 17 million users." It was over 20 million a week ago. Just so you know how fast this is moving. Devin always catches saucy legal language whenever he sees it. If he says "parasitically," it's on purpose.
17 million is related solely to how many users installed the extension through the Chrome Web Store. Other platforms include Firefox, Safari, Opera, Android and iOS. Google Play reports 5M+ downloads. Apple lists it as the first recommended app to add to Safari.
@@jeaniebird999 Unlikely, pretty standard thing when you unsub from a service or uninstall a program, it will ask why you decided to stop using said service/item.
@@jeaniebird999, sometimes, when you uninstall an app or extension, it will have a text input asking why. Developers often use this option to try to improve their products.
@@jeaniebird999 When you uninstall the extension, there's a survey asking why you did so. There's a number of options including "Other" which then lets you enter your own reason
You don't need to have used or promoted the extension in order to be affected. You yourself might be affected by this, even if you never even had affiliate links. They say google checks the suitability of adsense by, amongst other metrics, checking the conversion rate of the ads they place in your videos. If your watchers clicked ads served by youtube and it converted into a sale, but used honey during checkout, then it shows advertisements on your videos less effective than they really are, which causes youtube to allocate less and cheaper ads on your videos, which means less youtube revenue for you. Even if you use youtube mostly as a platform to publicise your law firm and adsense money is not relevant to you, you should probably join this lawsuit if you ever had a video monetized.
@JofreRS TH-cam runs ads on demonetized videos as well. In that case, affiliated last click belongs to some subsidiary of Alphabet/Google, creator gets nothing due to being demonetized. It is possible that Honey makes exceptions, but it is also possible it doesn't. Which means they might have sniped Google in the process. And Amazon/Twitch. And Google search, Microsoft Bing, DuckDuckGo, all media websites,... If you receive a mail from the seller because you willingly accept their mails and follow the link with Honey installed in default browser, it may appear as if Honey brought you to that seller's site.
Replacing someone's affiliate code without notifying the purchasing party to opt-in to do that seems highly unethical. The user has the intent to reward the original affiliate. I'd feel the same way if I gave the waitress $20 as a tip and the bus boy cleared the table and stuffed the money in his own pocket.
"Replacing someone's affiliate code without notifying the purchasing party to opt-in to do that seems highly unethical" - I wonder if such opt-in is buried in the Honey terms of service. It's definitely unethical, even if it is in the TOS. Quite frankly, it's unethical even if they explicitly told the users about it up-front and got consent when installing the extension. It should be as you suggest -- explicitly requiring consent at the moment of each and every transaction. "I'd feel the same way if I gave the waitress $20 as a tip and the bus boy cleared the table and stuffed the money in his own pocket" - Unfortunately, this (stolen tips) happens more often than we'd like to think. Not necessarily by a bus boy, but by "tip pools", which should be illegal. When I give a tip, it's for the service I received from that specific person. It is NOT intended to be shared with others.
@@nomore6167 At least your server knows they're pooling their tips. Paypal is stealing the whole tip jar, and the servers and bus boys and cooks don't even know
The great irony is this sounds a lot like "cookie stuffing", which eBay/PayPal itself set precedent (eBay Inc. v. Digital Point Solutions) by going after people who used similar techniques against eBay's own affiliate program.
Good shoutout…! One detail (how I get this…); At 16:52 you state that you’ve never used the Honey extension, all good but doesn’t matter here. What matters is if (hypothetically) “TMA” has shared _any_ affiliate codes, the Honey extension _may_ have come between that code and the _user_ (your viewer) intending to take on your (partnered) offer. End result is that the code never registers on “TMA”s behalf, as expected - even if the _viewer_ made the purchase. (And… I may have gotten this all wrong, though…😅)
Seems correct to me. The extension is alleged to poach ANY and ALL affiliate referrals _regardless of whom,_ much less whether they use the actual service themselves (to be potentially limited by its TOS). The end-user doing their actual e-shopping is _not_ a victim of this affiliate poaching.
The end customer is potentially missing out on the actual best price, due to Honey’s cooperation with the seller to offer the coupon that the seller wants promoted, even if there is a better coupon available at the time (the customer would have to ignore Honey’s suggestion, which they are likely to trust, and search for a better coupon themselves). Even if they do, Honey has replaced the affiliate cookie in the meantime.
There was an American dad episode that dd something like this. Stan was a car salesman, and another salesman was "helpfully" turning his paperwork in for him, but inserted himself into the transaction and signed off on the paperwork and took all of Stans commission, and his bonus.
Hey Krystle, As an original gen x geek/nerd I think it is interesting that the name of the browser extension is 'Honey'. In hacking terminology, a 'honeypot' is a false website/webpage/login page, or some other internet program or device, who's purpose is to collect login/validation credentials. Cheers, Tim
And that could actually be used to bolster the mens rea of the people who made that extension. It was a targeted move to claim a referral link of someone else as their own in stead of a honest case of oh, my click happened to be the last one.
As a small creator, I could easily argue that as a percentage of my overall revenue, this impacts me more because I may not be monetized on a platform. For us, affiliate sales are so incredibly important because of the fact that we a) have to work harder to get eyeballs on our content and b) convert it to sales for us and the partner in order to secure future deals. The risk/reward for the product manufacturer is greater for small creators so if a partner sees no sales traffic coming from our affiliate link, the likelihood that we secure future deals is diminished significantly. I've already signed up to potentially be a part of whatever LE is doing. Whether or not the end result will have any material impact remains to be seen, but honey's business practice absolutely makes it damn near impossible to ever see if this would be the case.
Just to echo and boost what others have commented or replied, the Honey "Terms of Service" (TOS) DO NOT APPLY to the plaintiffs in this case. The TOS is a contract between PayPal/Honey and the users of Honey. The plaintiffs DID NOT "SIGN" that TOS, and to my knowledge have/had no other contract with PayPal/Honey. PayPal/Honey is allegedly interfering as a third party with the contract the plaintiffs have/had with the vendor who gave them the affiliate link. (Honestly, this persistent TOS talk is driving me crazy 🤪.)
I never installed Honey. Why? I could not see how they made money. No one does stuff for free. If they don't have a way to make money that is clear, then they are doing something fishy like selling you and everything you buy to others. And in this case, stealing from TH-camrs.
"If they don't have a way to make money that is clear, then they are doing something fishy like selling you and everything you buy to others" - Out of curiosity, do you use any Google products (Chrome, Gmail, Google Docs, etc)?
Love your videos - but I have to respectfully disagree that any aspect of this can be considered "legal". I believe there is going to be government enforcement action brought on this - such as by the FTC for false advertising. Also by federal and state prosecutors for the same. And perhaps even criminal action under federal and state cyber crime laws (like the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act) given that the browser extension is essentially malware that is altering the web page the user is using to hijack the last click attribution, etc. So... IMHO completely ILLEGAL on all levels: civil, regulatory and criminal.
If you did you Promo Codes in your videos... even if you personally didn't use Honey your viewers who tried to use your code might have used honey, which would result in Honey stealing your commissions, so I think you might have been harmed by honey even if you personally never had any relationship with them.
16:55 it doesn't matter at all if you used this browser extension or not. if you've had any revenue on TH-cam, including affiliate links or Google ads on your videos, your channel might've been affected (with like 99% probability because of how popular the Honey extension is). It harmed literally everyone trying to earn on the internet - it made all the creators look like their work is less effective (worse stats and reputation, worse deals in the future, also smaller Adsense earnings)
Let's take this to it's logical extreme and play a little devil's advicate. If it's legal for Honey to do this, then would it be ok/legal for Google, MS, Firefox, Apple to put in their terms of service that "Anything you buy online with our browswer we are going to be the last click attribution. We will put it in the very code of the browser so that no-one has to click on anything, our affliate link will always be attributed. Nothing can override it, not Honey, no one". And effectivly Google, MS, Firefox, and Apple could claim all affliate commisions for every online purchase. If it WERE legal for Honey/Paypal to do what they are doing, why wouldn't it be legal for Google, MS, Firefox and Apple to out scum them by doing this?
How many affiliate businesses were pushed out when Honey entered the scene? Mine was one of them. It's reassuring to see them being held accountable now. Hopefully, the other similar players will face scrutiny too, and if these extensions are finally banned from stores, the industry can start moving forward again.
The unmentioned crime is this affects affiliates that may have never heard of Honey and have no connection to Honey. Anyone that makes money with affiliate links should be able to part of the class action.
So it's only for the US Citizens and such. I wonder if there is a way to get other countries involved in a global class action lawsuit of some sort. Do all the different countries have to have a lawyer file a similar lawsuit with say major Canadian Law Firms together, South American Law Firms together, etc.? Maybe once the US one goes through and they win with a verdict, it'll be that much easier for other countries to do the same thing without as much work because there will be a precedent?
Precedent doesnt really work like that internationally. Precedent would have to be set in each separate legal jurisdiction as US law, for example, has no jurisdiction over Panamanian law etc (or any other non-US related territory)
Question. If Honey was also editing attribution links from things like Google Ad-Sense, would that mean that not only Google, but every business that's ever signed on with them may have a case for interference with a contract?
100% Legal? X to doubt --It doesn't pass the sniff test for false advertisement. As anyone worth their degree knows: False advertisement is dependent on the average consumer belief because of the advertisement, not the advertisement verbatim.
You may have missed something obvious concerning the consumer and what they are being deprived of. If i use a code by one of my streamers and Honey changes it to them, i am deprived of my ability to support the streamer. I am clicking on a link, knowing i am giving my money (by the streamer getting his cut) to the streamer, but Honey is outright stealing it from me. If i donate to the American Red Cross, and someone takes that money and gives it to a for profit business, i am being deprived. That is theft by deception.
In this lawsuit, the people hurt are the content creators giving out discount codes for sponsors. Their discount codes are being stolen/skimmed by honey. They are not bound by the TOS of the people who downloaded the honey app.
As far as I can see the unknown in this is how are the larger ecommerce platforms (ie.. like Amazon) involved in this? They are the ones with the volume and the resources/analytics to see "Gee.. why has paypal commisions soared while all others have gone down by the same amount?" Did they not even question how is paypal even getting people to click on paypal affliate links? Shouldn't the large ecommerce platforms questioned not ever seeing paypal advertise any products? How is Paypal getting people to click on an affliate link? Or even why do they (ecommerce platform) have an affiliate link partnership with paypal in the first place? Paypal doesn't advertise their products/company. Something smells fishy. I think this scam may go deeper than just Paypal/Honey.
Well even if you don’t use honey yourself, it’s possible your viewers could, so you could still be affected if they used your affiliate link for a purchase 🤷🏻♂️
Isnt what Honey doing bad for companies that are affiliated with Honey/Paypal? If a consumer buys products without using an affiliate link, Honey injects their affiliate link and the companies pay the commission. Doesnt that hurt the company or am I understanding it wrong?
It does, and that's not the only way. It also hurts the company because Honey is now robbing them of advertising statistics. A company will want to try to be as informed as possible about how they spend their marketing budget and would probably prefer to spend it on people who are known to bring in sales. But when Honey steals the affiliate data, the company is unable to see where that particular sale came from and therefore has no information to go on when it comes to how to invest their marketing budget.
A couple of related topics I’d like to see a video about: 1) Is Megalag legally safe? 2) Is there anyway for consumers nullify the arbitration clause? 3) Can the FTC sue on behalf of the consumers? 4) Merchants must know about this, are they legally culpable?
2a) Actual violations of law (as in the amended complaint) get priority over contractual clauses and waivers. 2b) The affected victims are not those _actually using_ the browser extension so much as any and everyone _from whom_ the extension poached a referral at all. For example, if you are a content creator and a sponsor gave you a referral link, but an end-user clicking on it has the browser extension, then _even if_ they purchased something through your link you _don't_ get the commission from it because the extension swapped out your referral for theirs at the last moment.
@@Stratelier I suppose I could have been more clear. I'm thinking about the other side of the coin. For sure the anyone reliant on affiliate marketing is a victim here, and I think the grounds for the law suit are being well covered on the various lawyer channels - and we know that THIS law suit is covering all that. But what I haven't seen much of are the options for the consumer, who is not supporting the entity they they intended too, and is being tricked into thinking Honey is searching in good faith for the best discount codes. We know that there is an arbitration clause but I don't know if there is a way around that. Or, failing that, can the FTC sue on the consumer's behalf.
@@rogerpierson8319 Apparently Honey allows its business partners to control which coupon codes the extension is allowed to find for their products, so there _could_ be some loose grounds for a false advertising claim if a business does have better coupons than what the extension shows an end user. Doesn't feel like as strong a claim as the underlying affiliate poaching, though.
As an IT guy I see an important point here, a creator DOES NOT have to have any affiliation with Honey for their contribution data to be hijacked. That means any provisions about class action lawsuits etc on Honey Terms of Service contracts definitely DO NOT APPLY to creators not affiliated with Honey, not using/promoting the extension themselves. OFC it applies IMO to also to creators that did have an affiliation with Honey but where deceived (to be proven) about what the extension was actually doing. As somebody mentioned, it is very possible that the feature would not even be allowed in app stores if vetted properly by Google, Apple, etc.
Affiliate businesses impacted by affiliate hijacking by major companies deserve fair compensation for their losses. Significant investments in advertising are made to attract customers and earn modest affiliate percentages from sales. Honey, one of the first "seemingly legitimate" extensions engaging in affiliate hijacking, managed to evade repercussions, even as many individuals faced prosecution for similar practices in previous years.
So the creator in question who didn’t tell anyone was Linus tech tips and he posted a ridiculous apology. Highly recommended reacting to that if you can find it.
Another thing to consider is that a California law was added to the class action, which means that there could be 49 other states that have laws that Honey/Paypal may have broken!!! Uninstall Honey and Boycott Paypal!!!!
Listen to yourself. What your saying is essentially the same as a mob boss in the 1920s. You declare you want all the business in the neighborhood. The law defaults to the consumer in this case, not you.
@@maugseros8347 You want to boycott Paypal because "they may have broken ...". Not good enough. You can't strongarm consumers by denying their right to use coupons. The court will throw your case out into the street.
@@Critical-Thinker895 Umm... boycotting Honey and Paypal does not deny anyone the right to use coupons. Also, in case you haven't been paying attention, Honey is NOT giving you the best coupons (Which is exactly what they claim to do). They are partnering with ecommerce platforms to show Honey users smaller coupons than what one might find on their own. If you want to support a company that is stealing millions, hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars from anyone who uses affliate links, by all means, go right ahead. But I and millions of others and I'm sure most "critical thinkers" hope this lawsuit runs paypal into the ground for this BS!
As a consumer, the harm is being deceived! I support people based on my interests and values. I do NOT have PayPal because I do not support the owners. As a consumer, had I used Honey (I only used it once) the creators I thought I was supporting were not supported and the company I hate is being supported!
The product sellers must be complicit in this scam because they saw the volume of kick back links with Honey’s fingerprints, despite having no relationship with Honey, and providing no vouchers, but they paid out all the same. And these same sellers were sponsoring channels with their unique affiliate links but never seeing those links being used. It was always honey. It’s like a car making filling a dealership with cars, but all the cars are being sold by a third party out of nowhere, and still being rewarded.
It wouldn’t surprise me that honey knew this day would come eventually and they store zero information in their backend about which were “Got it” clicks - where no honey coupons were applied but the affiliate link was overridden. Determining the scale may prove difficult.
Honey does find coupon codes but, they do not point you to the best price for that product. I tried both Honey and Capitol One shopping. Both say they found a better deal and while you are staring directly at the screen for say a 35.00 item they try to direct you to a competitor that is say 55.00 with a 5.00 off coupon. The short time I tried out those extensions not one time did they ever lead me to a better deal than what I could find on my own.
I had honey when it first came out years ago, but never remembered to reinstall it on the new computer. This is truly despicable. I was surprised, though, when you said this was legal? I don't know, when I did use it, I was led to believe it would find the best coupon codes. I think there's a legal case for theft by deception, misrepresentation of the facts and making false promises even on the people who used honey, as it seems they might've not received the benefit of honey that it claimed to give...
All of this misattribution resulted in skewed data because it worked the other way for creators too. One creator talked about how honey used his referral code for a product for people who hadn't even been referred by him, and the company came to him about it.... The creator himself had not referred all of those people Honey just used his discount code which was unfair to the merchant in tracking how that TH-camr was ACTUALLY performing.
Funny thing, linus tech tips, the other youtuber who found that out before, had 10% of his company`s revenue, at the time, be related to affiliate links from his channels, and he was the 3rd biggest honey "promoter".
As a "not a techy person" you have to understand and pay attention to one tiny, but important detail, especially as a lawyer. Browsers take safety measures to prevent automatic fraudulent actions by third parties. So, to give Honey an opportunity to do something, it has to convict you to click somewhere. So, it will be your action, "the last click", which allows Honey to do all the shady things. It doesn't matter, what it will be: some coupon button , their coupon, button "We found nothing, sorry, click here", just a picture with a funny cat - YOU have to click somewhere on the current page to allow the browser to allow the Honey do all the things. They trying their best to convict you just to click somewhere on their extension page. It will be your action and browser will allow to open their own referral page which will rewrite the cookie. If they don't explain it to customer clearly EVERY TIME - it's a fraud.
What's worse is that those that got 'Honey' because of one y'tuber could be letting 'Honey' take affiliates from other y'tubers who were not part of the promotion, or even non-y'tube creators. It just sits there, ready to pounce on any purchase. The loss of continued sponsorship due to 'low reponse' could have effects outside the y'tube community.
Legal Eagle said they believe Honey also takes promo codes. That wasn't in Megalag's video, only the referral cookie. I'd like to see Legal Eagle's evidence for that.
Question - How or why is what Honey does considered legal? Isn’t taking someone’s commission, taking someone else’s money? And isn’t that stealing? How is that legal? And they are telling the consumers that they are looking for the best coupons, but they are not. Isn’t that false advertisement? How is that legal? And the extension says that is doing one thing, but it’s secretly hacking into the system to change a code… isn’t that malware? It’s a malicious software! How is that legal? Where is the loophole? Seriously, I want to know.
Follow the money. It starts at the customer.... Customer -> Pays -> The Company -> Some of it goes to Marketing -> Influencers But the Influencers agree with Last Click Atributation (when it works for them) and promoted Honey so... Customer -> Pays -> The Company -> Some of it goes to Marketing -> Influencers and/or Honey And now... Customer -> Pays -> The Company -> Some of it goes to Marketing -> Honey -> Class Action Lawsuit -> Influencers (less legal fees to TH-cam Lawyers) The problem is going to be the Influencers promoted it and agreed with Last Click. Customers agreed with the TOCs when they installed it. Unfortunately PayPal has lawyers too!
You forgot the part where the customer gets less value and pays more money for products because Honey frequently doesn't do the thing it is advertised to do. You also forgot the part where having a relationship with Honey is irrelevant in all cases. Direct monitory transactions are not the only way of doing business. Information and statistics can be just as vital. If I, as a consumer, wish to support something or someone, giving them money is not my only avenue. I can influence others to provide monitory value on my behalf, which is how affiliate sponsorships work. But if Honey breaks my link to that which I want to support, they are directly hurting my influence and intentions as a consumer. And this can inadvertently impact how the thing I want to support is able to persist. For instance, if I have a particular content creator that I like, they may no longer be able to continue to provide my preferred type of content if they are not receiving the appropriate support they are entitled to. This, obviously, impacts me negatively as a consumer.
@@R3_dacted0 Yep, there's a break in trust where you think (and are encouraged to think) you are supporting the creator and there's lies about how much of a saving you could make. But also the savings aren't real either, the company factors the discounts into the the price they set anyway - it's assumed you play the discount game, otherwise they wouldn't make a profit. Like loyalty cards at supermarkets where you give them the info they need to manipulate the prices to maximise profits for a paltry reward far less than you end up paying extra. Or membership prices at supermarkets where they charge £1.20 for a half sized can of baked beans unless you sign up to get it for £0.60, when the true price is more like £0.30 if you look elsewhere.
If I decided to buy something online by myself without using any affiliated links, and then honey poped up showing that there is no coupon, then insert its' cookie and get a commision from the merchants. Would that mean honey is stealing from the merchants and would they have a case against honey since honey did not do anything to guide me to buying the products yet getting the commission anyway?
I'm not sure it is as legal as it might seem. They've been intentionally deceptive in the marketing, their dealings with their users, and the influencers being sponsored. They've interfered with people's business models, people they have no contractual relationship with, to sabotage their commercial activities. They've allegedly colluded with stores in a way that disincentivises practices beneficial to the consumer by steering people away from better discount codes, thus artificially inflating the market prices. These practices, at scale, seem like the kind of things fraud, racketeering and price fixing laws are supposed to make illegal. It would likely be harder to prove than the civil claims but seems like it should be viable if the allegation is framed appropriately.
Sorry but this wasn't a very high quality analysis in my opinion. Mostly you just restated what Legal Eagle and Megalag had already said and when you got to the question of legality, the point in the video I was waiting for, you just slipped the idea that it's perfectly legal without justifying it. "This is a perfectly legal scam and so when we look at the complaint and we go well the three claims that they're bringing or counts I should say right one we want an injunction we want to stop this business practice that PayPal is doing because well it's perfectly legal but it's inherently unethical." What? Where's the explanation for why it is or is not legal. That's kind of the whole point of this video. Ugh. Also if it's perfectly legal how can Legal Eagle be successful in his lawsuit. Honestly you left me a lot more confused than before I saw this video.
The issue is how do you prove that fluctuating or simply low affiliate sales are so due to the Honey app? Could be Honey but could be other circumstances. If the Honey guys are smart and I believe they are there won't be any records of changed affiliate cookies anywhere. So the data is on each single PC that uses the Honey app. You'll most certainly get them to stop this venture (and they will come up with something new..) but to calculate the exact damage one had due to people using this app seems to be close to impossible.
Honestly think they at least believe what they are doing is illegal or scummy because their terms of service states that by agreeing to use Honey you can't start a class action lawsuit specifically , I say it is illegal because it's theft of wages, and fraud in the most basic of form
The @LegalEagle video seems weirdly edited. I get that he can only say certain things. But it feels like maybe there were two scripts that got cut together in the end. Just kinda strange to me.
8:05 incorrect. Honey self activates a pop-up. When you click to use or dismiss honey, honey swaps the link. This even applies to attribution links from the creators that have nothing to do with honey. Just because you have honey installed, honey rob's all creators.
I wonder if Paypal knew about this. And why he said "perfectly legal," how deeply have they looked into conspiracy, theft, conversion, computer tampering...And how Paypal's allowance of this now removes any defence of ignorance. Wow.
Even if you, as a content creator, do not use or endorse Honey, you are still affected. Consider how many viewers, fans, and followers may be using Honey. When those users click on any of your links, Honey steals credit for those links on the viewer's browser. For this reason, I believe that ALL content creators who use affiliate links of any kind should join the class action and try to get compensated for what has been stolen.
Even if you have never worked with Honey as a sponsor, if you have viewers who have already installed Honey in their browsers (which is very likely), your affiliate links will still be poached.
Come on, sing it with me: ~~~Honey, Honey taking our money~~~ ~~~You are a dummy if you think this is funny~~~ ~~~We gonna sue, turn their face blue, give us our damn due~~~
Reading through these replies is confusing. Some say Honey hijacks affiliate links even if the user has never installed Honey. That's hard to believe. Or is it that content creator has a deal with Honey so Honey hijacks user cookies even if the user doesn't have Honey. That I can believe is possible. Another person said Honey will hijack user cookie, but if the user goes and clicks the content creator link again it resets it back to the creator, that the last thing clicked is what the cookie contains. Words are nice but I think a drawing of where Honey interjects itself in the process would be helpful in explain what's going on. I got a feeling this is going to be a lot news for awhile that in the end will not change much. Honey will be slapped down, content creators will get little to no compensation for their losses, and some lawyers will make a lot of money and be the only winners.
I absolutely agree with this being unethical, and they should definitely be sued, but as someone who regularly sees scam or unethical ads on youtube, and, when I looked at honey, couldn't work out their business model, so left it alone, this is also kind of funny to me. Influencers accepting sponsorships from shady companies has been a problem for a long time, and hopefully, this will make influencers look a little harder into companies before accepting money to help defraud their viewers.
Question - You say this isn't technically illegal, but how is covertly changing and affiliate link to steal a commission any different from covertly changing and account number to steal a bank transfer? I.e. How is this not a computer hacking crime?
Do customers have a vested interest in supporting their favorite business ? Am I harmed when my favorite TH-camr can no longer afford to be a full time creator due to diminished income ? Does it make a difference if Honey did not clearly disclose what it was doing to my purchase ? Legally it is a stretch, but not a sanctionable frivolous stretch. It could work, so expect someone to make it. In the meantime, I have deleted my honey account.
It's not legal. Honey doesn't scour the internet for the best deals or scour the internet at all in some cases. That's wire fraud. It is advertising a service it doesn't actually provide sometimes and saying that over the internet. According to the original video, Linus Tech Tips might be in trouble. That's because the company is knowingly promoting an illegal service in older videos. Linus Tech Tips, according to the video, is still one of the top promotes, because it hadn't deleted the advertisements from its older videos.
I'm not an attorney but isn't this similar to the case against Jefferson Bruce McKittrick for cookie stuffing? He was sentenced to serving 20 years for wire fraud in 2015.
See, my issue isn't about the creators that sponsored honey. They got a big initial payout. My issue is small creators that might not be sponsored, but like megalag did, requested to be an affiliate like with Nord. They made no contract with honey , no association with honey, but their links could have been poached. They could not give consent through a tos for honey to take their commissions.
Why do you think damages will be hard to prove? certainly honey has years of financials, at least 5 that they gave paypal during paypals M&A process. They have fiduciary and tax requirements as well. All of this will be available via discovery. And, if it's demonstrated to the court that all of Honey was fraudulent - as a business model - it wont be necessary to demonstrate individual losses...they'll just develop a formula of harm based on whatever makes sense. This is a very real $ threat to PayPal and they'll have every incentive to settle.
@@LiveByTheNumbersAmounts to be a tough but every single time save, they've been used technicall Came from somebody else or let's say 90% to 90% and income probably came from Somebody else's affiliate link.
Are they required to prove damages, or that there was a contract between the affiliate/content creator and the affiliate company [e.g. commission junction], and that the affiliate/content creator had a reasonable economic expectation?
@@LiveByTheNumbers I doubt Honey has logs that could show who they took from and how much. Plus all the social media companies are doing their best to kill independent websites to suck up ad and affiliate revenue. Google is also filling its search results with sponsored sites. My sites have been around for almost a decade and so have my business partners. We used to make good money before COVID, but a lot of things changed online during the lockdown and now the internet is eating itself imo.
You don't need to have used or endorsed Honey to have been affected by it. If you've used promo codes or affiliate links or had a sponsor for any of your videos, you have potentially been affected
I remember PayPal pushing this so I just assumed it was a money-making scheme and ignored it, capital one has a similar shopping scheme going, if I am not mistaken he mentioned that, the agreement is probably similar
Imagine working so hard to monetize your youtube channel and to obtain affilitate links just to get no sales while commentors claim to have supported you theough buying the product. You will have distrust to your commentators, be demotivated, lose your advertisors (since they see that you are not making them money), as a youtube you would just stop trying to get these affiliation links that seem to not give you any money. You may even deside to quit TH-cam/making podcasts... because it appears to be non-financially helping you. It harms the youtube on so many levels and not just financially.
What about the many people who are NOT famous, struggling to make ends meet? They are using affiliate marketing to help. IF affiliate commission goes to the wrong person, FIX the system by rethinking the industry standard of last-click attribution models and move to first-click attribution models(or a hybrid approach.) Just be transparent about the discount code and who is getting any commission.
A simple _"[insert affiliate name here]_ will receive a commission from this purchase" blurb on the checkout screen should suffice. This would inform the buyer of who will be receiving a commission on their purchase and would allow buyers to check if they are indeed supporting the person they intended to support.
What are you most concerned with in the Honey/PayPal lawsuit?
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How Paypal will react. I use them a lot and if they react badly I probably will give Paypal the flick.
You said "I've never used this extension", dismissingly, but it's not about who uses the extension... If you have served any affiliate link or promo code, Honey stole from you, even if you have never used the extension... TLDR: You should sign up to the class action!
What if an affiliate website owner, with no affiliation to Honey, discovers that their tracking code is being replaced when visitors click their links? If they never used Honey or agreed to its terms, could this be considered theft of commissions-not just from them, but from other sites as well? If Honey’s browser extension overrides tracking codes, could it be redirecting commissions from websites that never endorsed it? For instance, if you (TopMusicAttorney) endorsed a product on TH-cam and never used or endorsed honey and a viewer of your channel wants to buy what you endorsed but Honey overrode your affiliate link would that be considered illegal since you have no agreement or affiliation with Honey?
@@HMan2828she should do what she thinks is better for her. But it’s recommendable
There's a new update to the lawsuit, a FIRST AMENDED COMPLAINT. You should do a video on that.
Just to be clear, it is not whether or not you have used the browser extension. It is whether or not you have used affiliate links or promo codes. You could have had commission money stolen from you even if you had never heard of Honey before last week.
and thats the really big issue, they might, possibly have buried small print so their promoters would have no protections, but random third parties would also be hit by this despite never saying the word honey, THATS where this escalates to awful
She seems to have ignored it in the videos so far, despite the comments? 😮
LegalEagle is also saying it could have affected adsense too, money creators would have gotten through ad revenue, because ads on TH-cam use the same tracking data to keep tabs on whose ads get clicked and result in sales (which Honey could snipe)
@@Much_Ado Definitely yes. People bid on ad slots on TH-cam based on how much of a return they think they are going to get on the Ad. With Honey around, they will think their return is much lower than it actually is, and therefore bid less for those slots.
@@Much_Ado For the ads, they got even "better" now with Pie.
I think the fact they replaced cookies actually landed them in electronic fraud when considering international trade law.
They could have had agreements with companies like Impact or Commission Junction. That, however, wouldn't void any contract between affiliates/creators and these companies.
Yeah, if no tracking was already there it makes sense or even an option for the end user to opt into the change, which is what an affil link is for.
cookie stuffing is the term alot of people are comparing this too. A guy already served like 5 months in prison for pulling this same tactic on ebay. Apparently there are already laws against this type of behavior because its wire fraud. PayPal is gonna be in alot of trouble.
How so? Cookies are owned and controlled by any regular "Joe', if they agree to allow any program or service the right to modify them on their phone/computer then legally they can.
@bmc7434
Actually the way they did this = no.
If they tell the user they do this yes.
What they done is clearly overwrite of a data/electronic token.
Without telling the user..
There's a key point that was no underlined, but was said in the Legal Eagle video. The fact that even if Honey does not find a coupon code, the mere interaction with the extension will hijack the attribution code. That to me makes no sense, you could argue that if the customer does get a coupon code maybe they wouldn't have made the purchase without it. But the fact that even with no coupon code they take the commission it's ridiculous.
It's also important to note that regardless whether a given creator did not promote Honey his audience might still be using the extension and as a result they could very well be losing commissions through the same process.
and there might very well be coupons that have been givento honey. But the retailer is a partner with honey and told them to not allow any coupon codes. So now the retailer AND honey are screwing over the customer and their other affiliate.
They also partner with the retailer to make sure you don't get the best coupon code. It says "we found 10% off" when in reality its easy to find 20% yourself.
@@zazuchthats exactly what is happening. Retailers have already said they partner with Honey.
To be fair, Legal Eagle Videos on that matter is not a great source, since he is a lawyer in the case and thus must make sure not to overstep.
@@TheJonHolstein The MegaLag video is the best one to watch if you want to understand what's happening in better detail.
''Your honor, imagine being a judge. Then imagine that you had to go going through multiple years of law school, optional lessons, reading and learning. You get a position to practice your occupation and do your job. As you finally end your day at work and send the plaintiff and defendant home, another judge stands by the doorway and offers to check their papers. Your salary for the day belongs to him now. You get nada.''
But seriously this is a horrible situation. Not mentioned is also the potential reputation damage Honey is causing. How many sponsors have influencers lost for not being ''worth it''? If Honey poaches a commission then the sponsor won't see the contribution of the said creator.
''Well, we are dropping you from sponsorship, you aren't bringing us enough sales.'' - Sponsor
''Wait! I am though...I've gotten hundreds of comments of people saying they've brought stuff through my links.'' - Creator
''...Nope. Not seeing it. Bye!'' - Sponsor
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Yep. I look forward to these gigantic swindlers getting their just desserts
16:52 "I have never used this browser extension" - this is not relevant and does not bar you from being impacted.
You do not need to have any knowledge of, nor relationship with or to Honey. If you've ever had an affiliate relationship with *_any business,_* you are a valid target and potentially already a victim.
Any user who already had Honey installed on their client, and with no relationship to you, may have inadvertently facilitated a cookie conversion from your affiliation to Honey's affiliation without your knowledge.
Again, If you have ever had an affiliate sponsorship from *_any business, no matter how insignificant or disconnected,_* you may have already been swindled. Even if you've never even heard of Honey before, they can still steal from your commissions.
Yes! This is the main point of confusion these videos have. Especially the ones about TOS. Creators who have never had any relationship with Honey are affected!
Yep! This channel lost much of its credibility when she said that.
Right on point!You must be an expert on this topic?Thank you is AI involved?
@@Tenly2009 Overreaction?
@@Tenly2009 To be fair, most videos fails at making that clear, and a lawsuit isn't exactly made up of the clearest of language.
But yes, it is problematic that she does nto understand she is in the class, if she has ever had any affiliate link or coupon code.
At this point it has not been made clear if it also applies to ad-sense statistics, meaning that it is possible that any video-creator with ads on youtube may be part of the class.
I'm waiting on governments to weigh in. I suspect paypal will not like the EU's take on this
on the other hand, the hole coupon game is used to collect data from the user. so the buisiness that honey is interfering with is pretty sammy to begin with.
Considering the incoming administration in the U.S. and its stance toward big business, I can almost guarantee you will see nothing from the U.S. government about this. It looks like it will be up to the EU (and the U.S. civil courts) to do anything.
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"There's about 17 million users." It was over 20 million a week ago. Just so you know how fast this is moving.
Devin always catches saucy legal language whenever he sees it. If he says "parasitically," it's on purpose.
And that’s just chrome, doesn’t count Firefox users
What ? People actually paid attention to those ads ?
@@edwardmacnab354 I downloaded it as a broke college kid in 2014, but I stopped using it years ago when I never got a benefit
17 million is related solely to how many users installed the extension through the Chrome Web Store. Other platforms include Firefox, Safari, Opera, Android and iOS. Google Play reports 5M+ downloads. Apple lists it as the first recommended app to add to Safari.
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I have removed the Honey browser extension, and when asked why, I replied, "Predatory business practices."
They actually contacted you and asked why?
@@jeaniebird999 No it's an automatic survey that pops up upon uninstalling the extension.
@@jeaniebird999 Unlikely, pretty standard thing when you unsub from a service or uninstall a program, it will ask why you decided to stop using said service/item.
@@jeaniebird999, sometimes, when you uninstall an app or extension, it will have a text input asking why. Developers often use this option to try to improve their products.
@@jeaniebird999 When you uninstall the extension, there's a survey asking why you did so. There's a number of options including "Other" which then lets you enter your own reason
You don't need to have used or promoted the extension in order to be affected. You yourself might be affected by this, even if you never even had affiliate links. They say google checks the suitability of adsense by, amongst other metrics, checking the conversion rate of the ads they place in your videos. If your watchers clicked ads served by youtube and it converted into a sale, but used honey during checkout, then it shows advertisements on your videos less effective than they really are, which causes youtube to allocate less and cheaper ads on your videos, which means less youtube revenue for you.
Even if you use youtube mostly as a platform to publicise your law firm and adsense money is not relevant to you, you should probably join this lawsuit if you ever had a video monetized.
@JofreRS TH-cam runs ads on demonetized videos as well. In that case, affiliated last click belongs to some subsidiary of Alphabet/Google, creator gets nothing due to being demonetized. It is possible that Honey makes exceptions, but it is also possible it doesn't. Which means they might have sniped Google in the process. And Amazon/Twitch. And Google search, Microsoft Bing, DuckDuckGo, all media websites,...
If you receive a mail from the seller because you willingly accept their mails and follow the link with Honey installed in default browser, it may appear as if Honey brought you to that seller's site.
What? Good you are good, must know something more that includes self robbery. Like legal robbery? Very intersecting….
Wish you a merry Christmas, I got something special for you Above. 🎊 🎉🎉
Wish you a merry Christmas, I got something special for you Above. 🎊 🎉🎉
Replacing someone's affiliate code without notifying the purchasing party to opt-in to do that seems highly unethical. The user has the intent to reward the original affiliate. I'd feel the same way if I gave the waitress $20 as a tip and the bus boy cleared the table and stuffed the money in his own pocket.
"Replacing someone's affiliate code without notifying the purchasing party to opt-in to do that seems highly unethical" - I wonder if such opt-in is buried in the Honey terms of service. It's definitely unethical, even if it is in the TOS. Quite frankly, it's unethical even if they explicitly told the users about it up-front and got consent when installing the extension. It should be as you suggest -- explicitly requiring consent at the moment of each and every transaction.
"I'd feel the same way if I gave the waitress $20 as a tip and the bus boy cleared the table and stuffed the money in his own pocket" - Unfortunately, this (stolen tips) happens more often than we'd like to think. Not necessarily by a bus boy, but by "tip pools", which should be illegal. When I give a tip, it's for the service I received from that specific person. It is NOT intended to be shared with others.
@@nomore6167 At least your server knows they're pooling their tips. Paypal is stealing the whole tip jar, and the servers and bus boys and cooks don't even know
𝑰 𝒘𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒇𝒆𝒓 𝒊𝒇 𝒘𝒆 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒑𝒓𝒊𝒗𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒅𝒊𝒔𝒄𝒖-𝒔𝒔𝒊𝒐n
The great irony is this sounds a lot like "cookie stuffing", which eBay/PayPal itself set precedent (eBay Inc. v. Digital Point Solutions) by going after people who used similar techniques against eBay's own affiliate program.
Wish you a merry Christmas, I got something special for you Above. 🎉.
Good shoutout…!
One detail (how I get this…); At 16:52 you state that you’ve never used the Honey extension, all good but doesn’t matter here.
What matters is if (hypothetically) “TMA” has shared _any_ affiliate codes, the Honey extension _may_ have come between that code and the _user_ (your viewer) intending to take on your (partnered) offer.
End result is that the code never registers on “TMA”s behalf, as expected - even if the _viewer_ made the purchase.
(And… I may have gotten this all wrong, though…😅)
Seems correct to me. The extension is alleged to poach ANY and ALL affiliate referrals _regardless of whom,_ much less whether they use the actual service themselves (to be potentially limited by its TOS). The end-user doing their actual e-shopping is _not_ a victim of this affiliate poaching.
The end customer is potentially missing out on the actual best price, due to Honey’s cooperation with the seller to offer the coupon that the seller wants promoted, even if there is a better coupon available at the time (the customer would have to ignore Honey’s suggestion, which they are likely to trust, and search for a better coupon themselves). Even if they do, Honey has replaced the affiliate cookie in the meantime.
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There was an American dad episode that dd something like this. Stan was a car salesman, and another salesman was "helpfully" turning his paperwork in for him, but inserted himself into the transaction and signed off on the paperwork and took all of Stans commission, and his bonus.
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Hey Krystle, As an original gen x geek/nerd I think it is interesting that the name of the browser extension is 'Honey'.
In hacking terminology, a 'honeypot' is a false website/webpage/login page, or some other internet program or device, who's purpose is to collect login/validation credentials.
Cheers,
Tim
And that could actually be used to bolster the mens rea of the people who made that extension. It was a targeted move to claim a referral link of someone else as their own in stead of a honest case of oh, my click happened to be the last one.
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Lets go fam 🙌⚖️
Wish you merry Christmas, I got something special for you Above. 🎉
Now we need a non-lawyer to make a video reacting to this lawyer reacting to another lawyer
Oh I think we can get more meta than that
@@dzonbrodi514 so, it’s meta all the way down? Always has been.
@@calebmusselman TH-cam is serious human centipede territory
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As a small creator, I could easily argue that as a percentage of my overall revenue, this impacts me more because I may not be monetized on a platform. For us, affiliate sales are so incredibly important because of the fact that we a) have to work harder to get eyeballs on our content and b) convert it to sales for us and the partner in order to secure future deals. The risk/reward for the product manufacturer is greater for small creators so if a partner sees no sales traffic coming from our affiliate link, the likelihood that we secure future deals is diminished significantly. I've already signed up to potentially be a part of whatever LE is doing. Whether or not the end result will have any material impact remains to be seen, but honey's business practice absolutely makes it damn near impossible to ever see if this would be the case.
Wish you a merry Christmas, I got something special for you Above. 🎉.
Just to echo and boost what others have commented or replied, the Honey "Terms of Service" (TOS) DO NOT APPLY to the plaintiffs in this case. The TOS is a contract between PayPal/Honey and the users of Honey. The plaintiffs DID NOT "SIGN" that TOS, and to my knowledge have/had no other contract with PayPal/Honey. PayPal/Honey is allegedly interfering as a third party with the contract the plaintiffs have/had with the vendor who gave them the affiliate link. (Honestly, this persistent TOS talk is driving me crazy 🤪.)
Good point! I guess it never ends?
𝑰 𝒘𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒇𝒆𝒓 𝒊𝒇 𝒘𝒆 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒑𝒓𝒊𝒗𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒅𝒊𝒔𝒄𝒖-𝒔𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏.
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Thank you! I was not aware of this, but now I am.
Wish you merry Christmas, I got something special for you Above. 🎉
I never installed Honey. Why? I could not see how they made money. No one does stuff for free. If they don't have a way to make money that is clear, then they are doing something fishy like selling you and everything you buy to others. And in this case, stealing from TH-camrs.
I never installed it 'cos I had a feeling that there was something inherently wrong with it. Looks like my intuition was correct
"If they don't have a way to make money that is clear, then they are doing something fishy like selling you and everything you buy to others" - Out of curiosity, do you use any Google products (Chrome, Gmail, Google Docs, etc)?
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Love your videos - but I have to respectfully disagree that any aspect of this can be considered "legal". I believe there is going to be government enforcement action brought on this - such as by the FTC for false advertising. Also by federal and state prosecutors for the same. And perhaps even criminal action under federal and state cyber crime laws (like the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act) given that the browser extension is essentially malware that is altering the web page the user is using to hijack the last click attribution, etc. So... IMHO completely ILLEGAL on all levels: civil, regulatory and criminal.
Noted. Thanks for sharing and for being here.
If you did you Promo Codes in your videos... even if you personally didn't use Honey your viewers who tried to use your code might have used honey, which would result in Honey stealing your commissions, so I think you might have been harmed by honey even if you personally never had any relationship with them.
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16:55 it doesn't matter at all if you used this browser extension or not. if you've had any revenue on TH-cam, including affiliate links or Google ads on your videos, your channel might've been affected (with like 99% probability because of how popular the Honey extension is). It harmed literally everyone trying to earn on the internet - it made all the creators look like their work is less effective (worse stats and reputation, worse deals in the future, also smaller Adsense earnings)
Wish you a merry Christmas, I got something special for you Above. 🎉.
Let's take this to it's logical extreme and play a little devil's advicate. If it's legal for Honey to do this, then would it be ok/legal for Google, MS, Firefox, Apple to put in their terms of service that "Anything you buy online with our browswer we are going to be the last click attribution. We will put it in the very code of the browser so that no-one has to click on anything, our affliate link will always be attributed. Nothing can override it, not Honey, no one". And effectivly Google, MS, Firefox, and Apple could claim all affliate commisions for every online purchase.
If it WERE legal for Honey/Paypal to do what they are doing, why wouldn't it be legal for Google, MS, Firefox and Apple to out scum them by doing this?
You have a great point! The internet must be shut down! Impossible let the robbers free AI is in the house..Alright man!
Wish you a merry Christmas, I got something special for you Above. 🎉.
How many affiliate businesses were pushed out when Honey entered the scene? Mine was one of them. It's reassuring to see them being held accountable now. Hopefully, the other similar players will face scrutiny too, and if these extensions are finally banned from stores, the industry can start moving forward again.
Wish you a merry Christmas, I got something special for you Above. 🎉.
The unmentioned crime is this affects affiliates that may have never heard of Honey and have no connection to Honey. Anyone that makes money with affiliate links should be able to part of the class action.
Wish you merry Christmas, I got something special for you Above. 🎉
if you have any money stored in your paypal account, i would highly recommend moving it. itll ghost next
𝑰 𝒘𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒇𝒆𝒓 𝒊𝒇 𝒘𝒆 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒑𝒓𝒊𝒗𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒅𝒊𝒔𝒄𝒖-𝒔𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏,
So it's only for the US Citizens and such. I wonder if there is a way to get other countries involved in a global class action lawsuit of some sort. Do all the different countries have to have a lawyer file a similar lawsuit with say major Canadian Law Firms together, South American Law Firms together, etc.?
Maybe once the US one goes through and they win with a verdict, it'll be that much easier for other countries to do the same thing without as much work because there will be a precedent?
Precedent doesnt really work like that internationally. Precedent would have to be set in each separate legal jurisdiction as US law, for example, has no jurisdiction over Panamanian law etc (or any other non-US related territory)
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Question. If Honey was also editing attribution links from things like Google Ad-Sense, would that mean that not only Google, but every business that's ever signed on with them may have a case for interference with a contract?
𝑰 𝒘𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒇𝒆𝒓 𝒊𝒇 𝒘𝒆 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒑𝒓𝒊𝒗𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒅𝒊𝒔𝒄𝒖-𝒔𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏,
100% Legal?
X to doubt --It doesn't pass the sniff test for false advertisement.
As anyone worth their degree knows: False advertisement is dependent on the average consumer belief because of the advertisement, not the advertisement verbatim.
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You may have missed something obvious concerning the consumer and what they are being deprived of. If i use a code by one of my streamers and Honey changes it to them, i am deprived of my ability to support the streamer. I am clicking on a link, knowing i am giving my money (by the streamer getting his cut) to the streamer, but Honey is outright stealing it from me. If i donate to the American Red Cross, and someone takes that money and gives it to a for profit business, i am being deprived. That is theft by deception.
Wish you a merry Christmas, I got something special for you Above. 🎉.
I'm curious how the damages will be quantified. It's pretty difficult to determine which users would have been using Honey.
@@yoshu4221 honey knows. They have the payment history.
The amended complaint alleges that Honey has good reason to keep extensive records about precisely this. Discovery will be . . . interesting.
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I'm glad someone is trying to stop their scam. And I love your voice 😍
𝑰 𝒘𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒇𝒆𝒓 𝒊𝒇 𝒘𝒆 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒑𝒓𝒊𝒗𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒅𝒊𝒔𝒄𝒖-𝒔𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏,
For the intrigue of this all, will Google get involved with this? They are somewhat motivated to make sure TH-camrs are profitable.
Wish you a merry Christmas, I got something special for you Above. 🎉
In this lawsuit, the people hurt are the content creators giving out discount codes for sponsors. Their discount codes are being stolen/skimmed by honey. They are not bound by the TOS of the people who downloaded the honey app.
tbh i don't think even users should be bound by the ToS, since honey never actually prompts users to agree to anything
@ Agree. That will be another Class Action.
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As far as I can see the unknown in this is how are the larger ecommerce platforms (ie.. like Amazon) involved in this? They are the ones with the volume and the resources/analytics to see "Gee.. why has paypal commisions soared while all others have gone down by the same amount?" Did they not even question how is paypal even getting people to click on paypal affliate links? Shouldn't the large ecommerce platforms questioned not ever seeing paypal advertise any products? How is Paypal getting people to click on an affliate link? Or even why do they (ecommerce platform) have an affiliate link partnership with paypal in the first place? Paypal doesn't advertise their products/company.
Something smells fishy. I think this scam may go deeper than just Paypal/Honey.
👀 Good eyes...Amazon silence does raises a few eye brows.
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'I'm honestly surprised companies like x,y,z etc allow these apps...'
Warning shots.
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Well even if you don’t use honey yourself, it’s possible your viewers could, so you could still be affected if they used your affiliate link for a purchase 🤷🏻♂️
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I hope you paid Legal Eagle attirbution fees, since you use lot of his video material in your video.
𝑰 𝒘𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒇𝒆𝒓 𝒊𝒇 𝒘𝒆 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒑𝒓𝒊𝒗𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒅𝒊𝒔𝒄𝒖-𝒔𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏
Reaction videos are cringe. And this lady doesn't understand the subject well enough.
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Isnt what Honey doing bad for companies that are affiliated with Honey/Paypal? If a consumer buys products without using an affiliate link, Honey injects their affiliate link and the companies pay the commission. Doesnt that hurt the company or am I understanding it wrong?
It does, and that's not the only way. It also hurts the company because Honey is now robbing them of advertising statistics. A company will want to try to be as informed as possible about how they spend their marketing budget and would probably prefer to spend it on people who are known to bring in sales. But when Honey steals the affiliate data, the company is unable to see where that particular sale came from and therefore has no information to go on when it comes to how to invest their marketing budget.
@R3_dacted0 Thats soooo scummy... but I cant lie. Its actually pretty genius.
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A couple of related topics I’d like to see a video about:
1) Is Megalag legally safe?
2) Is there anyway for consumers nullify the arbitration clause?
3) Can the FTC sue on behalf of the consumers?
4) Merchants must know about this, are they legally culpable?
2a) Actual violations of law (as in the amended complaint) get priority over contractual clauses and waivers.
2b) The affected victims are not those _actually using_ the browser extension so much as any and everyone _from whom_ the extension poached a referral at all.
For example, if you are a content creator and a sponsor gave you a referral link, but an end-user clicking on it has the browser extension, then _even if_ they purchased something through your link you _don't_ get the commission from it because the extension swapped out your referral for theirs at the last moment.
@@Stratelier I suppose I could have been more clear. I'm thinking about the other side of the coin. For sure the anyone reliant on affiliate marketing is a victim here, and I think the grounds for the law suit are being well covered on the various lawyer channels - and we know that THIS law suit is covering all that.
But what I haven't seen much of are the options for the consumer, who is not supporting the entity they they intended too, and is being tricked into thinking Honey is searching in good faith for the best discount codes. We know that there is an arbitration clause but I don't know if there is a way around that. Or, failing that, can the FTC sue on the consumer's behalf.
@@rogerpierson8319 Apparently Honey allows its business partners to control which coupon codes the extension is allowed to find for their products, so there _could_ be some loose grounds for a false advertising claim if a business does have better coupons than what the extension shows an end user. Doesn't feel like as strong a claim as the underlying affiliate poaching, though.
As an IT guy I see an important point here, a creator DOES NOT have to have any affiliation with Honey for their contribution data to be hijacked.
That means any provisions about class action lawsuits etc on Honey Terms of Service contracts definitely DO NOT APPLY to creators not affiliated with Honey,
not using/promoting the extension themselves.
OFC it applies IMO to also to creators that did have an affiliation with Honey but where deceived (to be proven) about what the extension was actually doing.
As somebody mentioned, it is very possible that the feature would not even be allowed in app stores if vetted properly by Google, Apple, etc.
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I think you don't have to prove yourself that you are an lawyer by holding an pen all the time..
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Affiliate businesses impacted by affiliate hijacking by major companies deserve fair compensation for their losses. Significant investments in advertising are made to attract customers and earn modest affiliate percentages from sales. Honey, one of the first "seemingly legitimate" extensions engaging in affiliate hijacking, managed to evade repercussions, even as many individuals faced prosecution for similar practices in previous years.
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So the creator in question who didn’t tell anyone was Linus tech tips and he posted a ridiculous apology. Highly recommended reacting to that if you can find it.
𝑰 𝒘𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒇𝒆𝒓 𝒊𝒇 𝒘𝒆 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒑𝒓𝒊𝒗𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒅𝒊𝒔𝒄𝒖-𝒔𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏,
𝑰 𝒘𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒇𝒆𝒓 𝒊𝒇 𝒘𝒆 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒑𝒓𝒊𝒗𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒅𝒊𝒔𝒄𝒖-𝒔𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏,
Another thing to consider is that a California law was added to the class action, which means that there could be 49 other states that have laws that Honey/Paypal may have broken!!!
Uninstall Honey and Boycott Paypal!!!!
Listen to yourself. What your saying is essentially the same as a mob boss in the 1920s. You declare you want all the business in the neighborhood. The law defaults to the consumer in this case, not you.
@@Critical-Thinker895 ???? Not even sure what you are trying to say or how it relates to my comment at all.
@@maugseros8347 You want to boycott Paypal because "they may have broken ...". Not good enough. You can't strongarm consumers by denying their right to use coupons. The court will throw your case out into the street.
@@Critical-Thinker895 Umm... boycotting Honey and Paypal does not deny anyone the right to use coupons. Also, in case you haven't been paying attention, Honey is NOT giving you the best coupons (Which is exactly what they claim to do). They are partnering with ecommerce platforms to show Honey users smaller coupons than what one might find on their own.
If you want to support a company that is stealing millions, hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars from anyone who uses affliate links, by all means, go right ahead. But I and millions of others and I'm sure most "critical thinkers" hope this lawsuit runs paypal into the ground for this BS!
@@Critical-Thinker895 you must be on something
I’m also Curious what happens if you uninstall, If it leaves software. 💀 at this rate.
Ir doesn't not, thankfully no extension is that powerful
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This is very similar to commission stealing that (used to) happen regularly at retail outlets.
𝑰 𝒘𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒇𝒆𝒓 𝒊𝒇 𝒘𝒆 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒑𝒓𝒊𝒗𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒅𝒊𝒔𝒄𝒖-𝒔𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏
As a consumer, the harm is being deceived! I support people based on my interests and values. I do NOT have PayPal because I do not support the owners. As a consumer, had I used Honey (I only used it once) the creators I thought I was supporting were not supported and the company I hate is being supported!
𝑰 𝒘𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒇𝒆𝒓 𝒊𝒇 𝒘𝒆 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒑𝒓𝒊𝒗𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒅𝒊𝒔𝒄𝒖-𝒔𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏,
The product sellers must be complicit in this scam because they saw the volume of kick back links with Honey’s fingerprints, despite having no relationship with Honey, and providing no vouchers, but they paid out all the same. And these same sellers were sponsoring channels with their unique affiliate links but never seeing those links being used. It was always honey.
It’s like a car making filling a dealership with cars, but all the cars are being sold by a third party out of nowhere, and still being rewarded.
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unfortunately youtube becoming them self one big scam
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So is Honey stealing money from Google and other online advertisers as well? I believe that ads on website use similar methods as affiliate links.
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It wouldn’t surprise me that honey knew this day would come eventually and they store zero information in their backend about which were “Got it” clicks - where no honey coupons were applied but the affiliate link was overridden.
Determining the scale may prove difficult.
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Another issue is that you don't even have to click the honey icon. It just usurps the code regardless.
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Honey does find coupon codes but, they do not point you to the best price for that product. I tried both Honey and Capitol One shopping. Both say they found a better deal and while you are staring directly at the screen for say a 35.00 item they try to direct you to a competitor that is say 55.00 with a 5.00 off coupon. The short time I tried out those extensions not one time did they ever lead me to a better deal than what I could find on my own.
Not to mention how Honey _itself_ boasts that businesses who partner with them get to control which coupons the extension is allowed to "find".
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I had honey when it first came out years ago, but never remembered to reinstall it on the new computer. This is truly despicable. I was surprised, though, when you said this was legal? I don't know, when I did use it, I was led to believe it would find the best coupon codes. I think there's a legal case for theft by deception, misrepresentation of the facts and making false promises even on the people who used honey, as it seems they might've not received the benefit of honey that it claimed to give...
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Prediction: Paypal will close up Honey to make this go away, pocketing obscene profits, and settling for next to nothing.
𝑰 𝒘𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒇𝒆𝒓 𝒊𝒇 𝒘𝒆 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒑𝒓𝒊𝒗𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒅𝒊𝒔𝒄𝒖-𝒔𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏
All of this misattribution resulted in skewed data because it worked the other way for creators too. One creator talked about how honey used his referral code for a product for people who hadn't even been referred by him, and the company came to him about it.... The creator himself had not referred all of those people Honey just used his discount code which was unfair to the merchant in tracking how that TH-camr was ACTUALLY performing.
Sounds like a glitch in their system, but a very interesting counterexample we need to see more details about.
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Funny thing, linus tech tips, the other youtuber who found that out before, had 10% of his company`s revenue, at the time, be related to affiliate links from his channels, and he was the 3rd biggest honey "promoter".
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As a "not a techy person" you have to understand and pay attention to one tiny, but important detail, especially as a lawyer. Browsers take safety measures to prevent automatic fraudulent actions by third parties. So, to give Honey an opportunity to do something, it has to convict you to click somewhere. So, it will be your action, "the last click", which allows Honey to do all the shady things. It doesn't matter, what it will be: some coupon button , their coupon, button "We found nothing, sorry, click here", just a picture with a funny cat - YOU have to click somewhere on the current page to allow the browser to allow the Honey do all the things.
They trying their best to convict you just to click somewhere on their extension page. It will be your action and browser will allow to open their own referral page which will rewrite the cookie.
If they don't explain it to customer clearly EVERY TIME - it's a fraud.
I mean, it's clearly a preprogrammed malicious intent.
𝑰 𝒘𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒇𝒆𝒓 𝒊𝒇 𝒘𝒆 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒑𝒓𝒊𝒗𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒅𝒊𝒔𝒄𝒖-𝒔𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏
This affects creators who have no connection to honey if a consumer is using honey. So it affects everyone.
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What's worse is that those that got 'Honey' because of one y'tuber could be letting 'Honey' take affiliates from other y'tubers who were not part of the promotion, or even non-y'tube creators. It just sits there, ready to pounce on any purchase. The loss of continued sponsorship due to 'low reponse' could have effects outside the y'tube community.
𝑰 𝒘𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒇𝒆𝒓 𝒊𝒇 𝒘𝒆 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒑𝒓𝒊𝒗𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒅𝒊𝒔𝒄𝒖-𝒔𝒔𝒊𝒐n
Legal Eagle said they believe Honey also takes promo codes. That wasn't in Megalag's video, only the referral cookie. I'd like to see Legal Eagle's evidence for that.
𝑰 𝒘𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒇𝒆𝒓 𝒊𝒇 𝒘𝒆 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒑𝒓𝒊𝒗𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒅𝒊𝒔𝒄𝒖-𝒔𝒔𝒊𝒐n
@TopMusicAttorney - You keep saying Honey has 17m users. But it had 20m before the Megalag video. 3m have uninstalled it in the past week
Soooo it has 17 million users currently? 😉 People are dropping off quickly every day! Appreciate you being here 🙏
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Curious how many of you still have a PayPal account?
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Question - How or why is what Honey does considered legal? Isn’t taking someone’s commission, taking someone else’s money? And isn’t that stealing? How is that legal? And they are telling the consumers that they are looking for the best coupons, but they are not. Isn’t that false advertisement? How is that legal? And the extension says that is doing one thing, but it’s secretly hacking into the system to change a code… isn’t that malware? It’s a malicious software! How is that legal? Where is the loophole? Seriously, I want to know.
𝑰 𝒘𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒇𝒆𝒓 𝒊𝒇 𝒘𝒆 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒑𝒓𝒊𝒗𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒅𝒊𝒔𝒄𝒖-𝒔𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏
Follow the money. It starts at the customer....
Customer -> Pays -> The Company -> Some of it goes to Marketing -> Influencers
But the Influencers agree with Last Click Atributation (when it works for them) and promoted Honey so...
Customer -> Pays -> The Company -> Some of it goes to Marketing -> Influencers and/or Honey
And now...
Customer -> Pays -> The Company -> Some of it goes to Marketing -> Honey -> Class Action Lawsuit -> Influencers (less legal fees to TH-cam Lawyers)
The problem is going to be the Influencers promoted it and agreed with Last Click. Customers agreed with the TOCs when they installed it. Unfortunately PayPal has lawyers too!
You forgot the part where the customer gets less value and pays more money for products because Honey frequently doesn't do the thing it is advertised to do.
You also forgot the part where having a relationship with Honey is irrelevant in all cases.
Direct monitory transactions are not the only way of doing business. Information and statistics can be just as vital. If I, as a consumer, wish to support something or someone, giving them money is not my only avenue. I can influence others to provide monitory value on my behalf, which is how affiliate sponsorships work. But if Honey breaks my link to that which I want to support, they are directly hurting my influence and intentions as a consumer. And this can inadvertently impact how the thing I want to support is able to persist.
For instance, if I have a particular content creator that I like, they may no longer be able to continue to provide my preferred type of content if they are not receiving the appropriate support they are entitled to. This, obviously, impacts me negatively as a consumer.
@@R3_dacted0 Yep, there's a break in trust where you think (and are encouraged to think) you are supporting the creator and there's lies about how much of a saving you could make. But also the savings aren't real either, the company factors the discounts into the the price they set anyway - it's assumed you play the discount game, otherwise they wouldn't make a profit. Like loyalty cards at supermarkets where you give them the info they need to manipulate the prices to maximise profits for a paltry reward far less than you end up paying extra. Or membership prices at supermarkets where they charge £1.20 for a half sized can of baked beans unless you sign up to get it for £0.60, when the true price is more like £0.30 if you look elsewhere.
If I decided to buy something online by myself without using any affiliated links, and then honey poped up showing that there is no coupon, then insert its' cookie and get a commision from the merchants. Would that mean honey is stealing from the merchants and would they have a case against honey since honey did not do anything to guide me to buying the products yet getting the commission anyway?
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I'm not sure it is as legal as it might seem. They've been intentionally deceptive in the marketing, their dealings with their users, and the influencers being sponsored. They've interfered with people's business models, people they have no contractual relationship with, to sabotage their commercial activities. They've allegedly colluded with stores in a way that disincentivises practices beneficial to the consumer by steering people away from better discount codes, thus artificially inflating the market prices. These practices, at scale, seem like the kind of things fraud, racketeering and price fixing laws are supposed to make illegal. It would likely be harder to prove than the civil claims but seems like it should be viable if the allegation is framed appropriately.
𝑰 𝒘𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒇𝒆𝒓 𝒊𝒇 𝒘𝒆 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒑𝒓𝒊𝒗𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒅𝒊𝒔𝒄𝒖-𝒔𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏
Sorry but this wasn't a very high quality analysis in my opinion. Mostly you just restated what Legal Eagle and Megalag had already said and when you got to the question of legality, the point in the video I was waiting for, you just slipped the idea that it's perfectly legal without justifying it.
"This is a perfectly legal scam and so when we look at the complaint and we go well the three claims that they're bringing or counts I should say right one we want an injunction we want to stop this business practice that PayPal is doing because well it's perfectly legal but it's inherently unethical."
What? Where's the explanation for why it is or is not legal. That's kind of the whole point of this video. Ugh. Also if it's perfectly legal how can Legal Eagle be successful in his lawsuit. Honestly you left me a lot more confused than before I saw this video.
𝑰 𝒘𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒇𝒆𝒓 𝒊𝒇 𝒘𝒆 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒑𝒓𝒊𝒗𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒅𝒊𝒔𝒄𝒖-𝒔𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏
The issue is how do you prove that fluctuating or simply low affiliate sales are so due to the Honey app? Could be Honey but could be other circumstances. If the Honey guys are smart and I believe they are there won't be any records of changed affiliate cookies anywhere. So the data is on each single PC that uses the Honey app. You'll most certainly get them to stop this venture (and they will come up with something new..) but to calculate the exact damage one had due to people using this app seems to be close to impossible.
Wish you a merry Christmas, I got something special for you Above. 🎉.
Honestly think they at least believe what they are doing is illegal or scummy because their terms of service states that by agreeing to use Honey you can't start a class action lawsuit specifically , I say it is illegal because it's theft of wages, and fraud in the most basic of form
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The @LegalEagle video seems weirdly edited. I get that he can only say certain things. But it feels like maybe there were two scripts that got cut together in the end. Just kinda strange to me.
𝑰 𝒘𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒇𝒆𝒓 𝒊𝒇 𝒘𝒆 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒑𝒓𝒊𝒗𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒅𝒊𝒔𝒄𝒖-𝒔𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏,
8:05 incorrect. Honey self activates a pop-up. When you click to use or dismiss honey, honey swaps the link. This even applies to attribution links from the creators that have nothing to do with honey. Just because you have honey installed, honey rob's all creators.
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I wonder if Paypal knew about this. And why he said "perfectly legal," how deeply have they looked into conspiracy, theft, conversion, computer tampering...And how Paypal's allowance of this now removes any defence of ignorance. Wow.
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Even if you, as a content creator, do not use or endorse Honey, you are still affected. Consider how many viewers, fans, and followers may be using Honey. When those users click on any of your links, Honey steals credit for those links on the viewer's browser. For this reason, I believe that ALL content creators who use affiliate links of any kind should join the class action and try to get compensated for what has been stolen.
𝑰 𝒘𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒇𝒆𝒓 𝒊𝒇 𝒘𝒆 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒑𝒓𝒊𝒗𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒅𝒊𝒔𝒄𝒖-𝒔𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏
Even if you have never worked with Honey as a sponsor, if you have viewers who have already installed Honey in their browsers (which is very likely), your affiliate links will still be poached.
𝑰 𝒘𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒇𝒆𝒓 𝒊𝒇 𝒘𝒆 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒑𝒓𝒊𝒗𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒅𝒊𝒔𝒄𝒖-𝒔𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏,
It's called Tortious interference with contract with the intent to do harm. Sue them I would.
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Come on, sing it with me:
~~~Honey, Honey taking our money~~~
~~~You are a dummy if you think this is funny~~~
~~~We gonna sue, turn their face blue, give us our damn due~~~
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Reading through these replies is confusing. Some say Honey hijacks affiliate links even if the user has never installed Honey. That's hard to believe. Or is it that content creator has a deal with Honey so Honey hijacks user cookies even if the user doesn't have Honey. That I can believe is possible. Another person said Honey will hijack user cookie, but if the user goes and clicks the content creator link again it resets it back to the creator, that the last thing clicked is what the cookie contains. Words are nice but I think a drawing of where Honey interjects itself in the process would be helpful in explain what's going on.
I got a feeling this is going to be a lot news for awhile that in the end will not change much. Honey will be slapped down, content creators will get little to no compensation for their losses, and some lawyers will make a lot of money and be the only winners.
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I absolutely agree with this being unethical, and they should definitely be sued, but as someone who regularly sees scam or unethical ads on youtube, and, when I looked at honey, couldn't work out their business model, so left it alone, this is also kind of funny to me.
Influencers accepting sponsorships from shady companies has been a problem for a long time, and hopefully, this will make influencers look a little harder into companies before accepting money to help defraud their viewers.
Wish you merry Christmas, I got something special for you Above. 🎉
Question - You say this isn't technically illegal, but how is covertly changing and affiliate link to steal a commission any different from covertly changing and account number to steal a bank transfer? I.e. How is this not a computer hacking crime?
𝑰 𝒘𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒇𝒆𝒓 𝒊𝒇 𝒘𝒆 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒑𝒓𝒊𝒗𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒅𝒊𝒔𝒄𝒖-𝒔𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏.
Do customers have a vested interest in supporting their favorite business ? Am I harmed when my favorite TH-camr can no longer afford to be a full time creator due to diminished income ? Does it make a difference if Honey did not clearly disclose what it was doing to my purchase ? Legally it is a stretch, but not a sanctionable frivolous stretch. It could work, so expect someone to make it. In the meantime, I have deleted my honey account.
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It's not legal. Honey doesn't scour the internet for the best deals or scour the internet at all in some cases. That's wire fraud. It is advertising a service it doesn't actually provide sometimes and saying that over the internet.
According to the original video, Linus Tech Tips might be in trouble. That's because the company is knowingly promoting an illegal service in older videos. Linus Tech Tips, according to the video, is still one of the top promotes, because it hadn't deleted the advertisements from its older videos.
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It only effects those that deal with them and tech firms. Most artists don't look for shortcuts.
𝑰 𝒘𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒇𝒆𝒓 𝒊𝒇 𝒘𝒆 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒑𝒓𝒊𝒗𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒅𝒊𝒔𝒄𝒖-𝒔𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏,
You said. you don't use Honey. As a contributor, the issue isn't that, it's if fans of yours use it.
𝑰 𝒘𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒇𝒆𝒓 𝒊𝒇 𝒘𝒆 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒑𝒓𝒊𝒗𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒅𝒊𝒔𝒄𝒖-𝒔𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏
I'm not an attorney but isn't this similar to the case against Jefferson Bruce McKittrick for cookie stuffing? He was sentenced to serving 20 years for wire fraud in 2015.
𝑰 𝒘𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒇𝒆𝒓 𝒊𝒇 𝒘𝒆 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒑𝒓𝒊𝒗𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒅𝒊𝒔𝒄𝒖-𝒔𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏
See, my issue isn't about the creators that sponsored honey. They got a big initial payout. My issue is small creators that might not be sponsored, but like megalag did, requested to be an affiliate like with Nord. They made no contract with honey , no association with honey, but their links could have been poached. They could not give consent through a tos for honey to take their commissions.
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We figured this out years ago in realtionship to our photography websites, but good luck proving your damages.
I think that’s what discovery is for? Honey is legally obligated to hand over that information if they have it.
Why do you think damages will be hard to prove? certainly honey has years of financials, at least 5 that they gave paypal during paypals M&A process. They have fiduciary and tax requirements as well. All of this will be available via discovery. And, if it's demonstrated to the court that all of Honey was fraudulent - as a business model - it wont be necessary to demonstrate individual losses...they'll just develop a formula of harm based on whatever makes sense. This is a very real $ threat to PayPal and they'll have every incentive to settle.
@@LiveByTheNumbersAmounts to be a tough but every single time save, they've been used technicall Came from somebody else or let's say 90% to 90% and income probably came from Somebody else's affiliate link.
Are they required to prove damages, or that there was a contract between the affiliate/content creator and the affiliate company [e.g. commission junction], and that the affiliate/content creator had a reasonable economic expectation?
@@LiveByTheNumbers I doubt Honey has logs that could show who they took from and how much. Plus all the social media companies are doing their best to kill independent websites to suck up ad and affiliate revenue. Google is also filling its search results with sponsored sites.
My sites have been around for almost a decade and so have my business partners. We used to make good money before COVID, but a lot of things changed online during the lockdown and now the internet is eating itself imo.
The creator side is definitely a strong civil case…the consumer side is in my opinion a strong CRIMINAL case.
𝑰 𝒘𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒇𝒆𝒓 𝒊𝒇 𝒘𝒆 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒑𝒓𝒊𝒗𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒅𝒊𝒔𝒄𝒖-𝒔𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏
You don't need to have used or endorsed Honey to have been affected by it. If you've used promo codes or affiliate links or had a sponsor for any of your videos, you have potentially been affected
Wish you a merry Christmas, I got something special for you Above
honey with a hidden pot.
𝑰 𝒘𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒇𝒆𝒓 𝒊𝒇 𝒘𝒆 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒑𝒓𝒊𝒗𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒅𝒊𝒔𝒄𝒖-𝒔𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏,
I remember PayPal pushing this so I just assumed it was a money-making scheme and ignored it, capital one has a similar shopping scheme going, if I am not mistaken he mentioned that, the agreement is probably similar
𝑰 𝒘𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒇𝒆𝒓 𝒊𝒇 𝒘𝒆 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒑𝒓𝒊𝒗𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒅𝒊𝒔𝒄𝒖-𝒔𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏,
if a creator is not making enough ad revenue through YT, how many channels/years of work has suddenly disappeared from the platform?
Wish you merry Christmas, I got something special for you Above. 🎉
How comes that Google/Alphabet isn't part of this class action trial? Guess their adsense would have been harmed big time.
𝑰 𝒘𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒇𝒆𝒓 𝒊𝒇 𝒘𝒆 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒑𝒓𝒊𝒗𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒅𝒊𝒔𝒄𝒖-𝒔𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏,
Imagine working so hard to monetize your youtube channel and to obtain affilitate links just to get no sales while commentors claim to have supported you theough buying the product. You will have distrust to your commentators, be demotivated, lose your advertisors (since they see that you are not making them money), as a youtube you would just stop trying to get these affiliation links that seem to not give you any money. You may even deside to quit TH-cam/making podcasts... because it appears to be non-financially helping you. It harms the youtube on so many levels and not just financially.
𝑰 𝒘𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒇𝒆𝒓 𝒊𝒇 𝒘𝒆 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒑𝒓𝒊𝒗𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒅𝒊𝒔𝒄𝒖-𝒔𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏
What about the many people who are NOT famous, struggling to make ends meet? They are using affiliate marketing to help. IF affiliate commission goes to the wrong person, FIX the system by rethinking the industry standard of last-click attribution models and move to first-click attribution models(or a hybrid approach.) Just be transparent about the discount code and who is getting any commission.
A simple _"[insert affiliate name here]_ will receive a commission from this purchase" blurb on the checkout screen should suffice. This would inform the buyer of who will be receiving a commission on their purchase and would allow buyers to check if they are indeed supporting the person they intended to support.
Wish you a merry Christmas, I got something special for you Above. 🎉
Who would have known that Honey turned out to be a honeytrap ;)
Wish you merry Christmas, I got something special for you Above. 🎉