One of Chrome’s most popular extensions, PayPal’s Honey is in trouble after losing more than 3 million users. The news comes after a shocking new video exposed its shady tactics that are now under scrutiny.
For many years, people relied on the feature to get the best coupon codes which would save them money without any additional cost. But there is more than meets the eye as shared in a recent video.
The company promised to land the lowest price for consumers with promotion codes and coupons added to online products. The appeal was massive and it struck with the public as it was for free. Now, new details revealed shared how it does not do this for free. Instead, of directly taking money from the consumer, they are linked to affiliate programs which give them a fee for making referral sales.
So in reality, you tell the retailer that Honey sent you here and therefore the extension receives its share when you make the purchase. The fact that this was hidden from users for years has left them feeling blindsided and betrayed, leading to instant uninstallations.
Thanks to the video published by MegaLag recently, evidence showed how Honey replaces affiliate codes from different sources like YouTube videos with that which belongs to them. They take full credit of the sale shamelelssly and end up stealing a fee from the other source’s referral. The feature is dubbed last click attribution and that’s how it’s been working for all this time. Now the strange fact is that it was revealed only recently, taking creators and many users by shock.
What is even more worrisome in this video is how the extension does the exact opposite of what it promises to users. Instead of looking for the best coupon code, it works alongside retailers to disguise better discount codes and only show those that retailers want buyers to see. This is why it was noticed over the years how it rarely offers major discounts. Another alarming feature is that whether or not a user makes a purchase, small interactions with the extension also allow it to seal attributions for a sale.
The video that detailed more about the Honey scam received more than 14M views since it was published at the end of December. This is why people didn’t waste any time uninstalling the feature from Chrome. Stats from Chrome shared more than 3 million users bidding farewell recently.
Today, the extension stands at 17M which is a drop from its 20M figure of users seen in the past week. So as you can tell, losing 3 million customers is a major downfall. For now, Honey is staying hush and is yet to speak about the accusations in public but we can confirm that a class action legal case was filed related to the incident.
Read next: Apple Adds New Warning Labels To AirTags After Rise in Safety Concerns
For many years, people relied on the feature to get the best coupon codes which would save them money without any additional cost. But there is more than meets the eye as shared in a recent video.
The company promised to land the lowest price for consumers with promotion codes and coupons added to online products. The appeal was massive and it struck with the public as it was for free. Now, new details revealed shared how it does not do this for free. Instead, of directly taking money from the consumer, they are linked to affiliate programs which give them a fee for making referral sales.
So in reality, you tell the retailer that Honey sent you here and therefore the extension receives its share when you make the purchase. The fact that this was hidden from users for years has left them feeling blindsided and betrayed, leading to instant uninstallations.
Thanks to the video published by MegaLag recently, evidence showed how Honey replaces affiliate codes from different sources like YouTube videos with that which belongs to them. They take full credit of the sale shamelelssly and end up stealing a fee from the other source’s referral. The feature is dubbed last click attribution and that’s how it’s been working for all this time. Now the strange fact is that it was revealed only recently, taking creators and many users by shock.
What is even more worrisome in this video is how the extension does the exact opposite of what it promises to users. Instead of looking for the best coupon code, it works alongside retailers to disguise better discount codes and only show those that retailers want buyers to see. This is why it was noticed over the years how it rarely offers major discounts. Another alarming feature is that whether or not a user makes a purchase, small interactions with the extension also allow it to seal attributions for a sale.
The video that detailed more about the Honey scam received more than 14M views since it was published at the end of December. This is why people didn’t waste any time uninstalling the feature from Chrome. Stats from Chrome shared more than 3 million users bidding farewell recently.
Today, the extension stands at 17M which is a drop from its 20M figure of users seen in the past week. So as you can tell, losing 3 million customers is a major downfall. For now, Honey is staying hush and is yet to speak about the accusations in public but we can confirm that a class action legal case was filed related to the incident.
Read next: Apple Adds New Warning Labels To AirTags After Rise in Safety Concerns
