• TAG@lemmy.world
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    16 days ago

    I agree that Honey is a sleazy extension, but should I be worried that if they lose, it will set a bad precedent? From the video, the Honey extension works by injecting a Honey referral code into all online shopping transactions, possibly overwriting whatever influencer referral code the user was under. If Honey loses, the court decision is likely to say that an extension creator is liable if they tamper with referral codes and tracking links.

    This will be a problem for privacy extensions that strip out tracking cookies and referral URLs, since they are also messing with influencer attribution, though not for profit but at the request of the user.

    • neclimdul@lemmy.world
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      16 days ago

      Not a lawyer and haven’t seen the lawsuit but I’ve watched a lot of legal eagle and other lawyers and I suspect it’s not about them manipulating codes. I also doubt this is the sort of case trying to set a precedent in any legal sense.

      Likely it’s just boring fraud because they deceived content creators and users with lies to make money.

      A different company doing the same thing but being honest might be unethical and terrible but probably wouldn’t be sued.

    • Ulrich@feddit.org
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      16 days ago

      That makes no sense. The problem is not that an extension is tampering with tracker links, it is that it is falsely attributing itself as a sales representative.