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#honey#affiliatemarketing#browserextensions

Exposing the Honey Influencer Scam

MegaLag

991K subscribers • 1 video on Hallway

YouTube
  • Recommended by 2 people: 2 on Hacker News.
  • An opinion. It argues one side of a question engineers disagree on.

Intermediate. Assumes working knowledge.

19M views1 year ago2 recommendations

SecurityWeb developmentHow browsers workHTTP, REST and GraphQLWeb and application security

An investigation into how the Honey browser extension swaps affiliate attribution codes and misleads users, using browser developer tools to demonstrate the process.

Was Honey a legitimate money saving tool? Or just an affiliate marketing scam promoted by some of YouTube's biggest influencers? If you have any inside information about PayPal Honey or believe you can contribute to this story, please feel free to contact me confidentially at megalagtips@proton.me. Support my channel on Patreon: patreon.com/MegaLag Instagram: instagram.com/mega.lag/ X: twitter.com/MegaLagOfficial

Why it's here

2 people recommend this

What people say. Recommended as an excellent technical investigation into affiliate marketing fraud and the security risks of browser extensions.

aunty_helenon Hacker News • Recommends

On “uBlock Origin GPL code being stolen by team behind Honey browser extension”

link For context, this all started about 2 weeks ago with one of the best pieces of investigative journalism I've seen on youtube: link to this video And it's spiraling from there into lawsuits etc. I'm kinda glad PayPal bought them as they can't just shut down and file bankruptcy. Hopefully some of these creators will get paid out for lost revenue.
View on Hacker News

smcleodon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Show HN: Open-source and transparent alternative to Honey”

Good video I watched recently on how the Honey scam works: link to this video *Edit: Oh I see you mention it in the video on your project! Nice work.
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d3vron Hacker News • Mentions

On “I built a platform for discovering and sharing Chrome extension collections”

For anyone else outside the loop, MegaLag released a video 1 yesterday exposing the shady practices by Honey 1: link to this video
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slowmovintargeton Hacker News • Mentions

On “uBlock Origin GPL code being stolen by team behind Honey browser extension”

If any software ever deserved being sued into non-existence it is the Honey browser extension, and any other scam software they turn out (Pie Adblock in this case). link to this video
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bryanton Hacker News • Mentions

On “LegalEagle is suing Honey [video]”

…had paid plans for merchants allowed paying merchants to suppress certain discount codes. Related: * MegaLag breaking the story of Honey swapping affiliate attribution as well as withholding functional coupon codes from customers. This video goes into technical depth, showing the actual process via browser dev tools where attribution is swapped - link to this video * MKBHD commenting on it - link * Linus commenting on it - link * Past discussion on HN that was cited by MegaLag - link…
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rideontimeon Hacker News • Mentions

On “I am rich and have no idea what to do”

Oh, I guess you haven't been keeping up with the news? You're a star now. link to this video As soon as people saw this, they started filing class action lawsuits. link So I guess we'll see!
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samelineon Hacker News • Mentions

On “Show HN: Get an email when the price drops on any product's URL. No spam”

This is also worth considering, thanks. We would need to be careful to avoid overwriting any pre-existing affiliate tags set on a user provided URL like Honey was doing 0. I’m curious why you stopped pursuing the idea if you don’t mind sharing. 0: link to this video
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AkshatJ27on Hacker News • Mentions

On “Honey's Dieselgate: Detecting and Tricking Testers”

The youtuber MegaLag released part 1 of his investigation roughly 1 year ago: link to this video Recently, he released 2 more parts with more new information that paints Honey in a pretty bad light: link link
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al_borlandon Hacker News • Mentions

On “Meta created 'playbook' to fend off pressure to crack down on scammers”

While I tend to agree with you, to the point that I've never willingly clicked on an ad, this isn't how most people that I've seen operate. I actively skip over ads in search results, skip whenever possible in video, and pay to remove them completely if it's offered (subscribing to Kagi and YouTube Premium). If I do end up seeing an ad for something that looks interesting/useful, I don't click on it. I search for it separately. I treat ads the same way I would a random text claiming to be my bank. I don't click the link, I go there on my own so I know I'm in the right place free of any funny business. The side effect of this is the merchant loses context on how effective their ad was. In con…
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al_borlandon Hacker News • Mentions

On “Google AI Overviews cite YouTube more than any medical site for health queries”

…ment, but this is probably more in depth than what a science program on TV in the 80s or 90s would have been… at least on par. There are also full class lectures, which people can access without being enrolled in a school. While YouTube isn’t the original source, it is still shared in full, not summarized or changed for entertainment purposes. 0 link to this video (part 1 of 3) 1 link 2 link 3 link…
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