YouTuber Legal Eagle is suing over PayPal’s Honey extension


The proposed class action lawsuit was filed December 29th in California’s Northern District Court by Stone’s Eagle Team LLP and several other YouTubers’ businesses. It accuses Honey of intentionally replacing creators’ affiliate links with its own, even if it’s not offering shoppers a benefit, depriving creators of money in the process.
The complaint alleges that PayPal’s practice violates California’s Unfair Competition Law and constitutes interference between creators and their business partners. The plaintiffs are seeking to represent anyone who was part of an affiliate program and had their link “redirected to Paypal as a result of the Honey browser extension.” Class action status has not yet been certified by a court.
Honey operates by offering to find coupon codes through its browser extension. The MegaLag video last month describes how when shoppers interact with its pop-up offers at checkout, it replaces existing affiliate cookies with its own in the background and gets credit for the sale, whether it actually found a coupon or not.
The complaint lists other ways PayPal is allegedly claiming affiliate commissions. That includes offering users rewards through its Honey Gold Program and encouraging them to “Get Rewarded with PayPal,” which prompts them to check out using PayPal.
“We dispute the allegations in the lawsuits, and will defend against them vigorously,” PayPal VP of corporate communications Josh Criscoe said in a statement emailed to The Verge. He added that “Honey follows industry rules and practices, including last-click attribution.”
The lawsuit acknowledges that last-click attribution is a standard practice that credits the most recent affiliate with a sale at checkout. The plaintiffs argue Honey is using that standard practice in a way that’s “deceitful and clandestine,” luring users into clicking useless pop-ups that insert its code. We’ve reached out to PayPal for a statement on the lawsuit.
Lawyers are asking the court to make PayPal pay damages to creators and to permanently forbid it from swapping its own affiliate attribution at checkout. They’ve set up a website inviting other creators to join the lawsuit.
Here is Criscoe’s full statement:
We dispute the allegations in the lawsuits, and will defend against them vigorously. Honey is free to use and provides millions of shoppers with additional savings on their purchases whenever possible. Honey helps merchants reduce cart abandonment and comparison shopping while increasing sales conversion. Honey follows industry rules and practices, including last-click attribution, which is widely used across major brands.
Update January 5th: Added statement from PayPal VP of corporate communications Josh Criscoe.
The proposed class action lawsuit was filed December 29th in California’s Northern District Court by Stone’s Eagle Team LLP and several other YouTubers’ businesses. It accuses Honey of intentionally replacing creators’ affiliate links with its own, even if it’s not offering shoppers a benefit, depriving creators of money in the…
Recent Posts
- Volvo ES90 will charge faster, drive farther than other Volvo EVs
- The truth about GenAI security: your business can’t afford to “wait and see”
- How Claude’s 3.7’s new ‘extended’ thinking compares to ChatGPT o1’s reasoning
- ‘We’re nowhere near done with Framework Laptop 16’ says Framework CEO
- Razer’s new Blade 18 offers Nvidia RTX 50-series GPUs and a dual mode display
Archives
- February 2025
- January 2025
- December 2024
- November 2024
- October 2024
- September 2024
- August 2024
- July 2024
- June 2024
- May 2024
- April 2024
- March 2024
- February 2024
- January 2024
- December 2023
- November 2023
- October 2023
- September 2023
- August 2023
- July 2023
- June 2023
- May 2023
- April 2023
- March 2023
- February 2023
- January 2023
- December 2022
- November 2022
- October 2022
- September 2022
- August 2022
- July 2022
- June 2022
- May 2022
- April 2022
- March 2022
- February 2022
- January 2022
- December 2021
- November 2021
- October 2021
- September 2021
- August 2021
- July 2021
- June 2021
- May 2021
- April 2021
- March 2021
- February 2021
- January 2021
- December 2020
- November 2020
- October 2020
- September 2020
- August 2020
- July 2020
- June 2020
- May 2020
- April 2020
- March 2020
- February 2020
- January 2020
- December 2019
- November 2019
- September 2018
- October 2017
- December 2011
- August 2010