this post was submitted on 03 Jan 2025
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879
LegalEagle Suing PayPal's Honey (youtu.be)
submitted 2 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
208 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

"The biggest scam in YouTube history"

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

Hope this case won't be used against consumers in the future. If I want to use/make an extension that scrubs all affiliate links and cookies that should be legal, same with an extension that replaces all affiliate links/cookies with ones from someone I want to support. Advertisers and their partners have no rights to anything being stored/done on my devices.

Not defending what Paypal was doing, but the real issue for me is that they had no intention of actually finding the best codes/discounts, not what they did with affiliate links.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

I would say the real issue is transparency. If Honey made it clear that their product overwrote the affiliate links referer, didn't actually find the best deals (despite advertising that exact thing), and then paid influencers to advertise their product that also steals from them, then this wouldn't be as much of a big deal if at all. Though they also probably wouldn't be a successful business, hence why many consider it a scam.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago)

That's fair, I agree. I just find it a bit concerning that random people who try to make money off of affiliate links are encouraged to join this class action lawsuit about a client-side browser addon. I totally understand why people who have had sponsorship agreements with them would sue, but that's purely between the two businesses. If this results in a ruling that has nothing to do with the lack of transparency then that might ultimately be a bad thing.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Not sure why someone would down vote this. I fully agree. Please someone explain why consumers shouldn't be able to use an extension like this that is not-for-profit, e.g.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 17 hours ago

They probably don't share my concern. I hope they are right.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 20 hours ago

some idiots think personal freedom is overrated and like to imagine the web browser as a mysterious black box that "just works".

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I hope LegalEagle takes them to the fucking cleaners and sets a precedent for scumbag companies like these who pull off affiliate hijacking and data harvesting.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

God PayPal has always been the scum of the earth and only gotten worse over time. 😡

[–] [email protected] 6 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

They banned my account for some reason, and I could never figure out why. I only used it to pay rent for a year or two and buy a couple of things on eBay. I'm guessing my account was hacked or something, but their support was utterly unhelpful so I have no idea.

But whatever, I don't need it for anything, so screw 'em.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 22 hours ago

I use to have a PayPal account. I used it to receive donations from some open-source projects that I was working on. And I passed most of the money on by re-donating it to other people who were also sharing high quality work that I liked. It was never very much money (like maybe a few hundred dollars in total over years); but I kind of enjoyed that.

But around 10 years ago, that PayPal account was blocked, because of who I'd sent money to. They didn't tell me specifically what the problem was, they just told me that it was 'suspicious' - and they (PayPal) demanded personal info from my to prove my identity before they would unlock the account. They wanted photos of drivers license and stuff like that.

Long story short, I eventually did get them to unblock the account (and I did not send them personal info); but that experience destroyed my confidence and trust in PayPal. So I drained the account, and haven't used them ever since. I very much don't like the idea that a company can just take my account (and money) hostage for totally arbitrary reasons and make demands based on that.

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