this post was submitted on 22 Dec 2025
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Finally! I was getting concerned with how long this was taking but see it was well worth the wait.
Somehow even worse than I ever imagined, and there's still more to come.
I know we're all jaded nerds on this corner of the internet that are well aware of "if you're not paying, etc. etc." but there's real value in investigations like this. Just look at how massively damaging and long-running this scam has been. The future of cyber security and cyberwarfare can't just be fought on tech knowledge alone, there's a huge social component to it and a "You should've known; I told you so" attitude won't help.
Spread the information and reach out to those closest to you to offer sincere and genuine help. Help your friends, family, and coworkers uninstall these extensions and all extensions like them. I feel like we're really coming to a point where all these tech industries have overextended themselves to a point where they are immensely vulnerable. Capitalism demands line always go up and if we can even slightly slow or possibly reverse that trend it could pop the bubble for a lot of these corporations.
I think especially because this investigation unearths the business models of predatory companies like these. It shows that these are not isolated incidents, and that this is the process by which corporate giants become giants. If there's anything to be jaded at, it's that late stage capitalism is moving closer and closer to the state of anarchocapitalism as time passes. These practices are so embedded, there's literal instruction guides in every corporate marketing department on how to circumvent consumer protection laws... assuming the consumer protection "agencies" aren't just working to protect the corps interests from lawsuits in the first place.
People need to know these things.
Feels like a historical rhyme to all the toolbars people would install into their browsers, only now it's extensions.
Haven't watched this video but IIRC the real scandal was that the extension would change the cookie to identify Honey as your referrer so the content creators whose referral you actually used didn't get paid. No matter how jaded you are, you can see that as the theft it is
It's even worse than all that. The video is worth a watch if you have the time, he gets his hands on the leaked source code via accidental exposure on the Apple store, but then also covers other extensions that exhibit this same behavior as well as Microsoft Edge that just has it built into the browser. That's right, even Microsoft is getting in on this by having their baseline browser without any extensions hijack the affiliate codes. It's all so brazen ...
I definitely will, I liked the last one! I just wanted to clear up what the scandal was - it wasn't something anyone could think creators should have seen coming
The new video showcases how Honey extorted small stores into becoming a paying affiliate with Honey in order to be able to keep certain discounts out of Honey's database.
Another thing even the most cynical person can easily see is extortion!
That was in the previous video