Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority
TL;DR
- The PayPal Honey extension has been caught stealthily replacing YouTubers’ affiliate revenue cookies with its own.
- Despite directing customers to the products, creators get nothing, as PayPal Inc. poaches the commission.
- The Honey extension also intentionally misleads users and often displays bad deals when collaborating with merchants.
PayPal Honey is a highly popular browser extension that promises users the best deals when e-shopping. Right before you check out, the tool scans the web for applicable coupon codes and, theoretically, presents them all to you. Sounds too good to be true, right? That’s because it is. A new investigation has revealed how the Honey extension actually works, and apparently, it’s scamming both the creators who promote it and the customers who rely on its discounts.
YouTube channel MegaLag has investigated how PayPal Honey works in the background and exposed the malicious activities it opts for to hurt everyone involved. For years, many well-known YouTubers, bloggers, and other creators have been promoting the browser extension on their platforms. Little do they know that Honey has been stealing their affiliate revenue all along.
When a customer lets Honey search for coupons during checkout, the service silently deletes the existing affiliate cookies and injects its own. This predatory behavior allows PayPal Inc. to poach the commission — despite creators actually directing users to the selected products. Simply put, YouTubers have been advertising a tool that steals from them this entire time.
Honey’s implications extend beyond creators; the service also adversely affects you — the user. While the extension promises to find the best deals online, it sometimes intentionally hides them from you. When a merchant enrolls in Honey’s (insignificant) cashback program, it gives them full control over the coupons presented by the extension. This enables sellers to hide better discounts publicly shared on the web from Honey users.
Given the blind trust, many customers don’t bother to search the web, believing Honey is providing honest results. So, they end up missing out on the most advantageous promotions shared elsewhere, as they opt for the minor ones presented by the deceitful extension.