Current Events > Honey Sued in Class Action by Wendover and Legal Eagle

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnT3OK5t2DQ

Is there anything Legal Eagle wont stick his nose in?

Honey like from bees?

jon_davis posted...

Is there anything Legal Eagle wont stick his nose in?

errr what?

jon_davis posted...

Is there anything Legal Eagle wont stick his nose in?

You don't like Legal Eagle?

AceMos posted...

errr what?

I think that may be an altered Winnie the Pooh quote.

Bees already having a tough time with climate change and pesticides, and legal eagle trying to take away the only thing they have left...

Doubt the suit will be very successful (unless there is more hiding underneath) and seems mostly about trying to get it in the court of public opinion to affect a settlement.

But that is me just guessing that Honey has a EULA that informs the end user that by using Honey they are giving affiliate credit to Honey.

realnifty1 posted...

Doubt the suit will be very successful (unless there is more hiding underneath) and seems mostly about trying to get it in the court of public opinion to affect a settlement.

But that is me just guessing that Honey has a EULA that informs the end user that by using Honey they are giving affiliate credit to Honey.

If it's not something made openly apparent to users, it can actually be fought against. Especially if it's specifically using a much more narrow group like this (content creators specifically sponsored by Honey). Normal end users won't be able to join in the suit, and wouldn't have probable cause even if they could.

When you enter a business transaction, and you are under the assumption that you are receiving something (in this case the affiliate credit/related revenue) but in actual practice you are not, that would count as being deceived by the other party. This is most likely a question that would have come up when the content creators were negotiating with Honey.

What is Honey in this case? It's probably not the studd made by bees.

Tom_Joad posted...

What is Honey in this case? It's probably not the studd made by bees.

It's a browser extension that you use for shopping that would find you cheaper prices. They partnered with content creators to advertise products with affiliate links where you buy something and the creator gets a cut.

1. Honey was routing customers to more expensive products rather than the best deal.
2. Honey was replacing the affiliate links with their own affiliate links.

I keep seeing topics about Honey, and my first thought is always that gas station honey. I think that's called Royal Honey though. I'm guessing this is about that browser extension.

Aysander posted...

If it's not something made openly apparent to users, it can actually be fought against. Especially if it's specifically using a much more narrow group like this (content creators specifically sponsored by Honey). Normal end users won't be able to join in the suit, and wouldn't have probable cause even if they could.

When you enter a business transaction, and you are under the assumption that you are receiving something (in this case the affiliate credit/related revenue) but in actual practice you are not, that would count as being deceived by the other party. This is most likely a question that would have come up when the content creators were negotiating with Honey.

You are entirely missing what is happening. To take some of the analogy presented in the filing there are two business relationships, we will just use Audible as a vendor for convenience but it could be any other vendor as well. Both Honey and a Content Creator have distinct business affiliate contracts with the vendor Audible, saying something to the line of 'hey you give me money and I will convert sales for you, and you will know that I have done this by a token that is submitted with the sale". Honey and Content Creator go about converting sales differently though, Content Creator talks about it and provides links, Honey actually forms a business relationship with End Users, this is where their EULA comes in.

Now, as you say End Users could potentially push back that it was not made clear to them what they signed up for by using Honey, but that is not the case at hand. Content Creator is claiming they have more right to End User than Honey, but Honey has a business agreement (EULA) with End User that says otherwise.

The obliviousness of CE to extremely mainstream apps, youtubers, and celebrities never ceases to amaze me.

Fable posted...

The obliviousness of CE to extremely mainstream apps, youtubers, and celebrities never ceases to amaze me.

Mainstream in what sense? Because I guarantee I can ask a bunch of people in the real world if they know about the Honey browser app and they wouldn't.

Jupiter posted...

Mainstream in what sense? Because I guarantee I can ask a bunch of people in the real world if they know about the Honey browser app and they wouldn't.

people think if they know about a thing then everyone must

be it celebrries or popular trends or wtv

when in reality we all inhabit different bubbles that just happen to bump into one another here

edit: and ive fallen into this my self i admit

Jupiter posted...

Mainstream in what sense? Because I guarantee I can ask a bunch of people in the real world if they know about the Honey browser app and they wouldn't.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/9/9948ed8c.jpg

The only reason I know what Honey is is because they used to advertise on those local station.x channels like H&I and MeTV. Along with all the ambulance chaser lawyers, placebo pills, and random scam gadgets.

It's not like Honey didn't work. Once in a blue moon, it will find working coupons.

But the overall business model is pretty damn scummy even compared to other browser extensions that do similar things like Rakuten or Capital One Shopping.

Starks posted...

It's not like Honey didn't work. Once in a blue moon, it will find working coupons.

But the overall business model is pretty damn scummy even compared to other browser extensions that do similar things like Rakuten or Capital One Shopping.

Did you see the video by MegaLag? It's not 100% about Honey just not finding savings, it's actively stealing referrals from partner influencers by replacing their affiliate links with Honey's own in the checkout screen.

Despite how anyone feels about influencers / youtubers it's essentially theft and it tries to hide what it's doing so that no one notices.

Fable posted...

The obliviousness of CE to extremely mainstream apps, youtubers, and celebrities never ceases to amaze me.

I consider myself fairly in tune with modern stuff and never heard of this company specifically. I know these kind of extensions exist and wouldn't install them on my worst enemy's machine, but that's the extent of it.

voldothegr8 posted...

I consider myself fairly in tune with modern stuff and never heard of this company specifically. I know these kind of extensions exist and wouldn't install them on my worst enemy's machine, but that's the extent of it.

Yeah. Any time I see something like this I automatically assume it's a scam and I'm usually right.

They don't usually get the kind of success Honey does, though.

I only learned about this from Mkbhd. Its quite amazing how Honey pulled this off for so long.

Jupiter posted...

Mainstream in what sense? Because I guarantee I can ask a bunch of people in the real world if they know about the Honey browser app and they wouldn't.

And I could ask a bunch and they would. Your life experience isn't absolute truth.

divot1338 posted...

Honey like from bees?

Probably the stuff made from weed

I know of it as it came up a few times as YouTube sponsorships.

Funny enough like, 4 years ago Markiplier was getting offers for it and he said he denied them because something about the service seemed fishy to him. He feels vindicated now, lol.

bluezero posted...

And I could ask a bunch and they would. Your life experience isn't absolute truth.

Didn't say it was.

I assume these two were sponsored by Honey?
Maybe don't try to scam a literal lawyer.
This is probably also sort of the youtubers' way of protecting their own brands, even if the suit goes nowhere.

Legal Eagle just made a video about this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4H4sScCB1cY

User Info: jon_davis
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realnifty1 posted...

Doubt the suit will be very successful (unless there is more hiding underneath) and seems mostly about trying to get it in the court of public opinion to affect a settlement.

But that is me just guessing that Honey has a EULA that informs the end user that by using Honey they are giving affiliate credit to Honey.

this isn't about the end users

you can sue and WIN when actual damages can be proven

a content creator who never promoted Honey, never partnered with Honey can easily prove damages here

Honey will be settling no doubt as they did infact damage content creators

I hope PayPal gets fucked on this one.

Leonard reads the amended complaint:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKZR4R80FBg&

WingsOfGood posted...

this isn't about the end users

you can sue and WIN when actual damages can be proven

a content creator who never promoted Honey, never partnered with Honey can easily prove damages here

Honey will be settling no doubt as they did infact damage content creators

Ok, I had time to watch the Eagle video, I wanted to ensure there wasn't something else to this before I went further. But there isn't and Devin is going to get cooked in court unless the Honey EULA does not specify how it works.

Content Creators and Honey are competitors and the grocery store can't sue the ice cream truck for lost sales. Their commission sales analogy is going to continue to bite them on the butt, even in commission sales it is entirely on the Consumer to allow for that with the Consumer able to overwrite it. It's been litigated before that right of commission is at Consumer discretion, so as long as Honey spelled out that by using it the Consumer was allowing for commission transference then there is nothing to see here.

The MegaLag video breakdown is really good.

Its scummy but I have a hard time caring about an issue with a service that creators wouldn't do the bare minimum of vetting before constantly blasting ads about it to their fanbase. It was so pervasive. Good luck on the lawsuit I guess, but this didn't affect the end user and theoretically the service still *sometimes* saves you money.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

Ah, well that's a different case I guess. I never used the service because I didn't like the idea of consolidating all of my online purchase data to a single shady 3rd party, but that's a bummer if true. I feel bad for the consumers and the creators who *didn't* advertise Honey and still lost affiliate commissions, but i really don't have a lot of sympathy for the people who took the ad money without asking any questions. Although it's partly because the ads were like, inescapable.

At BEST it could have been an extremely intrusive data vacuum/tracker, and was still constantly shilled as a good thing.