Popular browser extension 'PayPal Honey' has been found to be stealing influencers' affiliate revenue and offering unfavorable deals to users

PayPal Honey , a popular browser extension for online shopping, has been found to be stealing affiliate revenue that should have been paid to influencers who promoted its products, and offering users unfavorable deals.

Popular Honey extension caught scamming users and YouTubers - Android Authority
https://www.androidauthority.com/honey-extension-scamming-users-3510942/

'PayPal Honey' is a browser extension that presents users with the best deals when shopping online. PayPal Honey has over 17 million members, and claims that users save an average of $126 (about 20,000 yen) per year. Distributed on the Chrome Web Store, PayPal Honey has a very high rating of 4.8 out of 5. It is developed by a subsidiary of the payment service PayPal.

Honey: Automatic Coupons & Rewards - Chrome Web Store
https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/honey-automatic-coupons-r/bmnlcjabgnpnenekpadlanbbkooimhnj

Before any online purchase, PayPal Honey scans the internet for applicable coupon codes and applies all possible coupon codes. However, research has revealed that PayPal Honey is designed to deceive its creators and users.

The whistleblower YouTube channel MegaLag investigated how PayPal Honey works in the background. According to MegaLag, PayPal Honey has been promoted by many famous YouTubers, bloggers, and other creators for years. However, it has also been revealed that PayPal Honey has been stealing creators' affiliate revenue.

Exposing the Honey Influencer Scam - YouTube


When a user searches for a coupon when purchasing a product using PayPal Honey, PayPal Honey deletes existing affiliate-related cookies without permission and inserts its own cookie, which allows PayPal to steal affiliate revenue without paying creators, even though the creators directed users to the products.

In addition, it was revealed that PayPal Honey also had a negative effect on users. PayPal Honey promises to show you the best deals online, but in some cases it hides real deals. When online shoppers sign up for the PayPal Honey cashback program, they have full control over the coupons presented by the extension, allowing the seller to hide better discount coupons published on the Internet from users.

Many users believe that PayPal Honey is showing them the right results and don't bother to search the internet for other coupon codes, which leads them to 'trust minor promotions offered by fraudulent extensions and miss out on the most lucrative promotions shared elsewhere,' Android Authority noted.