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Honey has now lost 4M Chrome users after shady tactics were revealed

(9to5google.com)
657 points tantalor | 2 comments | 31 Mar 25 18:28 UTC | HN request time: 0.398s | source
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jabroni_salad ◴[31 Mar 25 19:14 UTC] No.43538651[source]▶
In case you missed it, a co-founder of Honey did an AMA on this topic a few days ago.

https://old.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1jlfms8/im_ryan_hudso...

I'm not a honey user but I thought this section was interesting:

> This gets a bit technical but in the video, Jonathon carefully shows you that the ‘NV_MC_LC’ cookie changes from Linus Tech Tips -> Paypal when a user engages with Honey. What he must have seen is that there is also a ‘NV_MC_FC’ cookie that stays affiliated with Linus Tech Tips and is NOT changed to Paypal. In this case LC stands for ‘last click’ and FC for ‘first click’. In the video he seems to claim that there is no first click cookie and only a last click cookie - this claim is false.

> In my DM conversation with Jonathon he claimed that he noticed the FC cookie but didn’t think it was relevant and that he was confused by it. I wonder, as an investigative journalist, did he think to ask anyone at NewEgg or the affiliate networks to explain it to him before he threw damning accusations at an industry he didn’t understand?

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staindk ◴[31 Mar 25 19:41 UTC] No.43538981[source]▶
I got a weird feeling from the MegaLag video, but overall don't think Honey are entirely in the clear either. From the AMA it seems Honey has been in the business of taking some/all affiliate revenue even in cases where it finds no coupons - sounds like the sites are fine/happy with this, but I'm sure people who post affiliate links are not.
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josephg ◴[31 Mar 25 20:10 UTC] No.43539328[source]▶
Yeah, the video wasn’t perfect. But honey is clearly a shady business. Honourable businesses don’t need to trick their customers and advertisers about how their business works. Honourable businesses don’t make an enemy of the truth.
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twostorytower ◴[31 Mar 25 22:58 UTC] No.43540913[source]▶
It was never a secret that shopping extensions monetized through affiliate. Merchants certainly know what they’re signing up for.
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1. josephg ◴[01 Apr 25 01:26 UTC] No.43541899[source]▶
> It was never a secret

Their business model was never explained clearly on their website. Now that how it works has become common knowledge, its absolutely wrecked honey's public perception.

Merchants may have known what they were signing up for (if they signed up at all). But the general public had no idea.

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2. kin ◴[01 Apr 25 04:57 UTC] No.43542995[source]▶
Actually if you check wayback they've been telling us straight up since 2016 they make money off of commissions. https://web.archive.org/web/20180125135216/http://help.joinh...

Affiliate attribution wasn't explained in full but MegaLag with all his research still didn't accurately explain it since it's pretty complex. The user doesn't need to know this.

Doesn't make sense to explain all the nuts and bolts if it works the same way any other coupon website would.