Netscape is suing PayPal?
LTT fans are in complete meltdown over big mean steve pointing out that Linus seemingly discovered this and stayed completely quiet about it.
Linus seems to had a big hissy fit about the whole subject of Honey on his WAN show, too.
WAN show is like 33% Linus whining about any actual or perceived slight against him for like over a year now. It’s getting so annoying.
I tend to agree that they should have spoken up. Even if just for the damn clicks and views.
If you’re no longer doing business with them, why not be vocal about why? If there’s a legitimate reason, it tells other partners where your line is so they know whether you’re a good fit for them. Don’t bad mouth them, but explain the facts and encourage viewers and other YouTubers to avoid them for the stated reasons.
I honestly don’t see what’s wrong with that. Steve from GN has done much worse and still gets sponsors, so it really can’t be that.
But they did state the reasons, on their forums. At the time it was only known Honey steals money from affiliate link owners, not from users, and presumably it worked correctly for users.
So what do you think would happen if they encouraged viewers not to use it? “Hey we know this extension makes you money, but please don’t use it because we, millionaire YouTubers, are getting smaller profits when your do, and our profits are more important than your savings”. They checked with other creators, most of YouTube stopped promoting it at the time, and that was it. It would be seen as very self-serving to complain about it to users/viewers.
It turns out, people care about supporting channels they watch a lot. In fact, I go out of my way to use affiliate links if they helped me decide with their review.
All they need to say is “Honey strips our affiliate links, so I’d appreciate if you don’t use that extension,” and provide some evidence. It doesn’t even need a full video, maybe use it as a segway into a sponsor that does honor referal URLs.
If users know Honey is messing with URLs for their own benefit, maybe they’ll look for an alternative.
I mean, the information was published. People could have shared it more if they cared. Most users don’t. Just look at the backlash he got for comparing ad block’s impact to that of piracy. I still see people citing that as a reason not to trust LMG. If people are that offended by being asked to consider the effects they have on creator income, you really think they’d react well to being told their discounts are hurting creators. They’re already seen as whiney, pro-corporate shills. They’re not going to go out of their way to shout from the rooftops criticism for a company that helps consumers (or was thought to at the time).
Edit: to be clear, I’m not a fan of LTT, but if you’re going to criticize them, do it for their bias, factual errors, personality, ect. Not because they didn’t go far enough to discourage using coupon codes.
Just look at the backlash he got for comparing ad block’s impact to that of piracy.
Well yeah, because he’s objectively wrong, yet doubled and (I think) tripled down on it.
What he meant was that blocking ads eliminates his revenue (which is bad), but it’s not piracy by any definition I’ve ever heard of.
That said, I don’t think it has anything to do with how trustworthy LMG is, there are plenty of other reasons to have concerns about that (GN made a video about that). I watch them occasionally as entertainment, but rarely for actual information.
Not because they didn’t go far enough to discourage using coupon codes.
I’m not arguing that they should discourage people from using coupons, I’m arguing they should have explained why Honey is problematic and why they’re no longer taking their sponsorships. There should be no call to action, merely information that Honey isn’t great. Users can then consider other sources for coupons that may be more friendly for affiliate links, or not, the information is merely why they’re no longer working w/ Honey as a sponsor.
Linus posted about it on the forum, and everything he said on the WAN show is correct if you actually watch the full clip instead of what GN edited it to say
While I think Linus can be way too whiny at times. I think he handled the situation well if everything stated is true. He made it clear on his forum that they terminated the partnership/sponsorship. He could have made a ‘more public statement (e.g., a video on ltt)’ but as he stated, viewers probably would have raked him over the coals for doing so. It likely would have been perceived as ‘oh no! Honey stole money from me but gave you a discount. Woe is me.’
He still is too whiny as of the last few years but as a small business (very small; ~20 employees) owner myself, I kind of get it. I go out of my way to try to give my employees the best possible experience but sometimes people think I’m just taking advantage of them (despite me paying my full-time employees 1.5x my pre-tax take home rate). So I kind of get why he acts that way at times. Now, I don’t condone it, but I understand.
Edit I love what Steve from GN is doing. I reported the honey extension when this news initially came out. I have supported all his pro consumer reports/actions.
Your comment is just objectively wrong.
I read that as “law slut”
18 U.S. Code § 351 always gets me going
Tech Jesus strikes again!
Prepare for his cumming
At this rate Steve is going to end up offed or cancelled in some kind of way, he keeps digging deeper.
They are running a drama/scandal focussed channel. Of course they are going to be controversial at times.
investigative journalism is drama now 👍
Just to make a more meta comment, this is a case where cynicism is definitely not helping. We need better journalists to do this kind of deep dive without concern for losing a revenue stream. And not just in gaming hardware, either.
If we cynically label every journalist that does it as “drama mongers”, we’re only hurting ourselves.
I haven’t been super happy about how GN approaches their journalism since they tend to sensationalize a bit, but I at least appreciate that they are pretty accurate when it comes to actual factual statements.
His heart’s in the right place, I just don’t like the tone.
Is there any case where cynicism is helpful?
When being scammed.
The way they are phrasing things is very sensationalist. They are very much not doing dry, factual content. This probably is required to make a profit, but too me is still drama.
What do you mean not doing factual content, they literally had a lawyer with them in their video about NZXT scams. They also showed tons of proof how NZXT was lying to the customers. NZXT CEO was eventually forced to do an interview regarding these news. Is it still drama to you?
They aren’t doing dry content. They do emotional but factual content.
Hot take, who cares if it’s mildly emotional as long as it delivers the truth. The issue with sensationalism is that it usually hides the truth, lies, or tells half truths. If the facts are all right there, who care?
Reporting is not to be emotional. Editorials are where the emotion goes.
This is such a weird position to take, they’re doing investigative journalism, but you’re upset because they’re not dry and emotionless about it?
that’s because they are forced to by the yt algorithm: you flat out cannot run a business on yt without resorting to clickbait titles, stupid thumbnails, and a bit of sensationalization, because the algorithm will deprioritize your video and unfairly limit your viewership if you don’t do those things.
Steve’s videos are generally very much dry, factual reporting using fairly neutral language; or in other words: really decent reporting!
if you want to complain about some tech youtuber doing the exact things you complain about, look at linus and jay…
there’s some good reasons why steve is one of only a handful of tech channels i still subscribe to…
Not really. Reviews and weekly news are still their bread and butter. They do a few of these deep dive investigations per year.
And they do very detailed reviews.
They seem to be doing far more of them lately.
Companies are going to shit more quickly these days
Yeah, it seems to be a personal mission for Steve, and he seems to be going a bit harder on them as well. I remember the fan controller fire risk thing was like 2-3 videos, each about 10-20 min, whereas recent “investigative journalism” pieces are more like 1-1.5 hours, and the details seem a bit more spread out.
I appreciate what he’s doing, I just wish it was a little less dramatic, but I guess that sells clicks and views.
Your being downvoted because they cannot handle the truth.
LegalEagle and Wendover Productions actually beat them to the punch (Nebula) on this. They filed on 29th December 2024, a whole 4 days earlier.
And since the US courts charge money to get these documents, I downloaded a copy of the complaint earlier on my PACER account so anyone who’s interested can read it without incurring the stupid fees. Enjoy
Edit: Devin Stone (the host of LegalEagle) is actually a lawyer on this case. His name and his law firm are listed as a lawyer for the plaintiff on the complaint.
Jesus, spelling mistake in the first sentence of the complaint. Fire the legal aide.
What’s the spelling mistake? I didn’t see it.
Plaintiffs are content created
Should probably be “creators”
I see. That’s not technically the first sentence though. I stopped looking once I got to line 6.
Page 2, line 8: “Plaintiffs are content created…”
Presumably it should be content creators, not created
In GN’s video the law firm mentioned there are 3-4 cases already and they are probably getting combined or go to the same judge. (IANAL; IDK the specifics)
Precisely.
Tthey said that they started work on it and by the time they submitted it, they found out that others had already done the same (of course they wouldn’t have known this when they started the legwork), but that ultimately that doesn’t matter because if it goes class-action – which is their desired path of action – the cases will be combined anyway.
If anything it’s beneficial that multiple people took this up, it should make class-action more likely.
Exactly. It takes weeks and perhaps longer to put together a case, so the fact that they’re within a few days of each other is pretty remarkable and implies they have a pretty good case. Hopefully they can combine notes and really take Honey to the cleaners.
Oh well. I must confess though, watching a 1.5 hour video to make sure I didn’t say something they already said didn’t seem like an appealing proposition to me.
If you haven’t seen it yet, check out this investigation on Honey (20 minutes, Part 1):
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vc4yL3YTwWk
It’s fascinating stuff. Open fraud.
I can’t speak for formal legal matters (I am assuming such scams are nominally legal in the US), but it goes to show that senior PayPal executives are basically criminals. There is no way they didn’t know about this.
I mean, Paypal is a bank that isn’t beholden to all the normal bank regulations and customer protection rules due to technicalities. They have been caught effectively seizing customer funds through locking accounts for questionable reasons before, and offer no reasonable way of recovering funds from locked accounts. Numerous stories of people operating online etsy (and similar) storefronts getting accounts locked for vague claims they were actively money laundering, with no means for appeal.
Anyone just now becoming aware of the paypal execs’ corruption hasn’t been paying attention.
There’s a reason that a set of grifters who ran the place is nicknamed “The Paypal Mafia”.
And Elon Musk is one of the “founders” (even though he actually got his company, X - not the current one -, merged with PayPal).
I am genuinely concerned about this because Legal Eagle’s suit is directly tied to manipulating URLs and cookies. The suit, even with its focus on last click attribution, doesn’t make an incredibly specific argument. If Legal Eagle wins, this sets a very dangerous precedent for ad blockers being illegal because ad blockers directly manipulate cookies and URLs. I haven’t read the Gamer’s Nexus one yet.
Please note that I’m not trying to defend Honey at all. They’re actively misleading folks.
It could never apply to ad blockers. You install an ad blocker knowing that it will block stuff… and explicitly WANTING it to do so.
Nobody installed honey knowing that it was manipulating cookies and stuff. The normal layperson who installs it will just think “It’s just chucking in coupon codes into that box!”…
One is predicated on a lie of omission… the other is literally what the user wants. There’s a huge difference…
You’re looking at it from an end user perspective. “I want it to do this, so it’s ok” for an ad blocker, but “I didn’t know it was doing this so it’s bad” for Honey.
But the LE/GN cases are that Honey changed URLs and cost them the sale revenue, no? That’s not the end user experience. Seems like that could easily be pivoted to a website who claims lost revenue was stolen from them because ad blockers are manipulating their site/URLs, end users’ desires be damned.
But the LE/GN cases are that Honey changed URLs and cost them the sale revenue, no?
https://www.cpmlegal.com/assets/htmldocuments/GamersNexus v. Paypal.pdf
a. Nationwide Class: All persons and entities in the United States who participated in an affiliate commission program with a United States eCommerce merchant and had commissions diverted to PayPal as a result of Honey.
So yes, they’re suing on behalf of creators.
But they’re using logic of what is promised/advertised to users… alongside the creator side of it all.
- Consumers download the PayPal Honey browser extension under the promise that Honey will search the web for the best coupons to ensure consumers pay the lowest prices when checking out with eCommerce merchants […] After this affiliate network partnership is established, on information and belief, Honey deliberately withholds higher-value coupons, directly contradicting Honey’s promise to consumers.
Which we know is inaccurate at this point and honey is lying. Most of the rest will come out in discovery if Honey wants to fight it. And I think it’s safe to say that anything that comes out in discovery will simply hang honey even more than we already know.
Gotcha. Thanks for providing the additional detail! It is comforting to learn why it’s unlikely this could affect ad block.
It could never apply to ad blockers.
I mean it certainly could if it was deemed so broad as “Honey was manipulating affiliate links”, but I don’t think it would.
Because the courts in America have proven how much they care about rule of law and procedure when it comes to rich offenders lately…
That’s like saying bank robberies being illegal mean that going to the bank is illegal.
Honey is unlawful because of what they DO by changing those URLs and cookies, e.g enriching themselves at the expense of creators.
Your analogy doesn’t work at all.
If one of the core harms is the removal of income and tracking, ad blockers fall into this category. Ad blockers very explicitly remove these things. The harm is not “Honey stole my income” it’s “Honey removed my tracking and Honey added their tracking.” Read the Legal Eagle case.
and Honey added their tracking.”
The key point they were making is that uBO isn’t adding their own affiliate links and stealing revenue they haven’t earned, unlike Paypal.
I wonder if those other “spammy” adblockers do precisely this. Insert affiliate links.
Doesn’t Brave already swap some ads for their own?
I have read the case.
I don’t enrich myself by using an adblocker. And I certainly don’t enrich myself at other’s expense.
I understand why you would think that, but this is not the case. Not a lawyer though, not legal advice.
There are 2 main types of causes of action for this, let’s go over them:
- Conversion, unjust enrichment: Here, Legal eagle and other creators allege Honey took money that was supposed to go to them. Basically just theft. This does not apply to adblock, since they don’t take the money.
- Tortious interference: Here they claim, that by removing the tracking cookie, they unlawfully interfere with the business relationship between the affiliates and the shopping platform. This could maybe apply to ad-blockers, but it is almost certainly superseded by the user explicitly wanting to remove tracking cookies, and the user has the right to do so. Saying that it is unlawful interference is like saying a builder hired by a land owner to build a fence is interfering with truckers who were using the land as a shortcut. They had no legal right to pass through the land in the first place. So the owner can commission a fence and a builder can build it. A contract between the truckers and amazon would not matter. In case of honey, it is like the builder was not hired by the owner and just built the fence to spite the truckers without owners permission.
But adblockers don’t enable unlawful enrichment. Or do they?
Only paid ones. Theoretically could impact Brave, for instance.
I think it’ll be okay, Honey was actually making money from the manipulation without user knowlage.
Adblocks don’t make money and users are (should be) aware that tracking links and stuff gets removed.
There is no reason why the complaint can’t be specific to modifying just attribution and commission cookies. And ad blockers mostly work by blackholing DNS request to ad servers and manually editing DOM and removing elements that load content from known ad services. If an ad blocking extension modifies cookies it’s typically just blocking them entirely (something every browser has built in) not editing them.
I use uBlock Origin to remove tracking. I also manually remove tracking. Privacy Badger is a tool that works to explicitly do this kind of tidying.
I think we can agree that modifying a cookie such as that Honey does to steal commissions and blocking a cookie in its entirety as a security or privacy measure are material different actions.
So I find the concerns that Honey getting sued and having to pay damages could open up ad blockers to getting sued overblown.
You can quantify damages equal to the amount of commissions paid on purchases actually made in Honey’s case (and on the consumer side with the difference in discounts provided by Honey withholding the best coupons it claims to provide)
You can’t quantify damages made by blocking ads or tracking cookies as advertisement and tracking doesn’t directly translate to sales
IIRC Legal Eagle is suing on the side of retailers that have been harmed by the plugin, while this one is more on the side of consumers. They still might end up combined.
Shit’s getting real in Honey’s legal department.
In a short 10-15 years we will see a resolution to this case and be able to have closure. A blink of a eye.
Meh. I don’t care about youtube personalities losing money when they all collectively contributed to lowering our standards and making us accept a ‘new normal’ of ads in videos.
spits
Make sure you download the SponsorBlock browser addon. It automatically skips over sponsored ads in the middle of youtube videos.
Edit: Good job sticking up for people who only see you as dollar signs. Can’t say I expected more.
SponsorBlock generaly sucks, I can do it manually
No it doesn’t.
I used the one included with vanced for a while until I noticed that it was skipping stuff in the video when they were talking about the product the video was about. Not all the time and it could have just been their implementation of it but it put me off using it.
Then you configured it too aggressively. You can select what it should skip
I tried messing with it but it either did too much or not enough.
No shit, i didn’t say it sucks for you.
I can tell you’re mad because I dared to challenge those who have lowered our standards.
What 💀
You’ll understand when you’re older, hopefully.
John I’m not 8 years old, you’re just not making sense.
It usually works great for me (and when it doesn’t - I help), but it obviously doesn’t work on downloads so I still have to skip some ads manually.
