The IT Nerd

Over the last week or so, Honey has been in the news for all the wrong reasons. Honey is a browser extension that claims to find you the highest value coupon codes when buying items from Amazon and some other online retailers while costing you nothing. Creators promoted them heavily a few years ago via paid ads in their YouTube videos for example which helped Honey to become very popular.

The thing is, it now appears that Honey wasn’t telling the truth. A YouTuber who goes by the name Megalag posted a video exposing two things that Honey was doing:

• He accused Honey of working with retailers to not display high value coupon codes so that users of this browser extension would only find the coupon codes that they wanted you to find. Typically these were ones that were the lowest value available, despite the fact that there were higher value ones available.
• He accused Honey of manipulating creators affiliate links so that Honey would get the money that should have gone to the creator in question. Effectively stealing from the creators that they worked with to promote the browser extension.

If you really want to go into the weeds here, the video is below and I suggest that you watch it:

Now since this story came to light, several creators have come out with videos commenting on this situation. MKBHD and Linus Sebastian for example have done this. I encourage you to watch their videos as well. But it highlights the danger of being a creator and having to work with brands to make money. Which is the brand in question may be “shady AF” as the kids say. Though with the information that is out there, Honey appears to be the most shady company the world has ever seen as what they have been accused of doing most certainly harms creators and consumers.

As an aside, that’s why I don’t take sponsorships from brands. And while I do occasionally get products sent to me for free, I review them as if I have paid for them. You can read more about that here.

In any case, Honey’s problems don’t end here. Last night Devin Stone, who is also known as the YouTuber Legal Eagle dropped this video on YouTube:

He’s filed a class action lawsuit against Honey on behalf of all creators. This is a huge problem for Honey and their corporate masters at PayPal. The bad press around their shady actions have sent Honey underground. Likely because they either are unable to or unwilling to respond in any way shape or form that will put this firestorm out. Perhaps both. But the fact is that now that a lawsuit has been filed, they might have no choice but to answer this.

Now let me give you a piece of advice regarding Honey. If you have their browser extension installed, uninstall it now. As in drop what you’re doing and uninstall it. It doesn’t do what it says it does. And given what has come to light about them, you have to wonder what else it might do. Thus removing it is the best course of action for anyone who has it installed. Related to this, this highlights why you should be very careful about what software you install on your computer. Because even if it comes from the Apple App Store or the Google Play store (because as I type this, Honey is still available in the Apple App Store… Why I do not know) doesn’t mean it is safe or does what it claims to do.

I’ll be watching this situation with great interest as this situation is one that is likely going to evolve over the coming weeks as the bad press along with the lawsuit plays out. But what is clear is that Honey, and their corporate masters at PayPal are likely to come out on the losing end of this no matter what happens.

This entry was posted on January 3, 2025 at 9:11 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Paypal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.