this post was submitted on 31 Mar 2025
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Honey has now lost 4 million Chrome users after shady tactics were revealed (9to5google.com)
submitted 3 days ago by BrikoX@lemmy.zip to c/technology@lemmy.zip
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After being exposed for shady tactics in late 2024, Honey has now lost over 4 million users from its peak numbers.

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[–] NotAnotherLemmyUser@lemmy.world 15 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Looks like they had already lost 4 million users within 2 weeks of MegaLag's video.

Are we saying that the numbers haven't moved since then? Is this article sourcing their information from a few months ago, or maybe just looking at different metrics to come up with that number?

It's also worth pointing out that MegaLag mentioned that there's a Part 2 to the original video, but it hasn't been posted yet even thought it was supposed to come out early January.

I'm assuming PayPal didn't like what he was doing and sent some lawyers his way:

https://www.patreon.com/c/megalag/posts

[–] p03locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 2 days ago

Can't see the contents of the post, because I assume it's available to members only.

[–] Doombot1@lemmy.one 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Looks like he posted a Patreon update only an hour ago, but I am not subscribed and can’t see what it is. I wonder what he’s saying in that.

[–] NotAnotherLemmyUser@lemmy.world 9 points 3 days ago

I was just about to edit my post because I just got done with watching the video. I'll just give you an overview of what he talked about. It was a 13min video.

It does sound like legal action has already been taken against Jono (MegaLag) in some way since he mentioned that he can't talk about everything, "There are just some things that I can't share with you right now", but that could also just be because he's still tracking down additional information and doesn't want any companies to try to cover their tracks while he's following a lead.

He started off the video by recounting his experience from when he first dropped the video, to the next day when he woke up to notifications from a lot of family, friends, and dms from influencers. He ended up working through Christmas with everything going on.

Ryan Hudson, the founder of Honey, dm'd Jono (MegaLag) on Twitter. He only showed a few screenshots of this conversation (not the whole thing) and mentioned that, by the end of it, Ryan Hudson insinuated that he would be suing Jono.

Ryan also made a Reddit post trying to disparage his investigation: https://web.archive.org/web/20250401034542/https://old.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1jlfms8/im_ryan_hudson_the_cofounder_of_honey_ama/

He mentioned that there are now 60 class action lawsuits (that expand beyond Honey) which includes people suing Capital One, Klarna, Microsoft, PayPal and RetailMeNot (he was only able to look into about 30 of them).

He mentioned that Google has updated their Affiliate Ads Policy in response to everything. He covers this in more detail on Twitter: https://xcancel.com/MegaLagOfficial/status/1899611189107147223

MegaLag reached out to the FTC asking them to clarify whether Affiliate Marketing disclosures is required for browser extensions. They gave him the run around for a few weeks and eventually replied, "Nothing to say on this one. Sorry."

MegaLag finished the video talking about how he developed a new browser extension which helps detect Cookie Stuffing (whenever a webpage attempts to drop an affiliate cookie when you wouldn't expect it). He's using it now for more investigations. It's not out yet, but he's looking to eventually make it public for everyone.

[–] BlastboomStrice@mander.xyz 17 points 3 days ago

Do they still operate??

[–] slazer2au@lemmy.world 8 points 3 days ago

Good.