YouTuber finds popular browser extension Honey engaging in deceptive affiliate practices

[Redaktion]

A YouTuber has been investing Honey for a while, and some of its results are less than ideal. Apparently, it overrides any affiliate links on the checkout page, effectively denying the creator that got you there their commission.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/YouTuber-finds-popular-browser-extension-Honey-engaging-in-deceptive-affiliate-practices.935848.0.html

[jack1243]

This is all very true an I bet why TTT didn't 'out' them is because they paid them gazzilions for those 5 years, or it could be a part of their contract (disparaging clause).

But, the more interesting part is why honey doesn't show the 'best' coupons. It's very true, the owners of stores can control that aspect but their reason would be something like. Honey is an affiliate channel, so some coupons that are targeted for email campaigns, new customer acquisitions, or old customer win-back, would not qualify, as they are usually juicier, and would 'mess' with owners being able to gauge how well their other marketing campaigns are actually working. That's their basic reasoning anyway...

Reality is simple though - honey and other like them browsers are simply designed for lazy consumers, who will take any, not the best discount available. And, if they are this lazy, they are likely either being scammed  like the video said, or oblivious to the last click.

[ReplyGirl]

I don't think it's just lazy people. Some people just don't understand or know how to search the internet for discounts. Too many people are using the internet and social media with no clue how any of it works. With the creation of A.I., it's only going to get worse. That's why it's important for schools to teach things like computer literacy. Many parents have no clue how their computer or the internet works. The young kids of today (18 and younger) who has grown up fully in the age of computers, will know more about it than those who are 35 and older. Even without this expose, IMO, the days of Honey was always numbered.

[Lombardo]

Biggest companies are the scammiest one

[Lombardo]

We have the Rakuten extension for cashback, the Dontpayfull Automatic Coupons extension for discounts, and the Retailmenot website for those searching for coupons on their phones.
Why don't people constantly look for alternatives? Every company has its moment of success and its moment of decline. Honey was relevant up until about five years ago.

[asl97]

It always disappointing when nobody tries to look at it from the other side.

• Honey has stated very clearly in their FAQ since 2012 before being brought by paypal that "Similar to coupon and rebate sites, [they] make money through affiliate programs", after being brought by paypal, it was reworded and moved into their extremely wordy terms as "We make money to sustain the Service when you purchase or engage with these offers".
  
  While it is scummy, it's technically not a scam (to the promoter/youtuber) as they did state somewhere on their website the fact that if their viewers had the extension installed, any purchase they made would be done with honey affiliate code.
  
  Implying even if their viewer use their link.
  
  
• Regarding best promo code part which most is calling a scam, for pre-paypal honey, I would give them the benefit of the doubt.
  
  As far as I am aware of, honey don't have accounts and anybody could submit codes, if all submitted codes goes live without review, then all it would take is for a bad actor to spam submit codes to make honey a bad experience, imagine an offensive word popping up or the extension trying to apply hundreds or thousands of bogus code with your account, not only might it take minutes or hours, your account might even get ban for attempting to apply bogus code.
  
  There are a number of reason why a code might not appear after submitting. Some promo code has extra restrictions like time, location, specific items, etc. Those would unlikely get past automated verification before going live and if a spam attack happens, the system might just give up on attempting to verify by applying each submission and expunge the backlogs to get to newer code submitted.
  
  That is assuming they had a system and weren't manually verifying each code
  
  And as a shopping platform, I wouldn't want honey scrapping tons of pages too frequently, so honey would also had to limit how often they check each site so they don't get block by ddos protection.
  
  The part about allowing partner to remove promo code seem to be post-paypal, so I would put the scammer allegation squarely on paypal