I'm Suing Honey

Welcome back to LegalEagle. The most avian legal analysis on the internets.

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Sorry, occupational hazard: This is not legal advice, nor can I give you legal advice. I AM NOT YOUR LAWYER. Sorry! Everything here is for informational purposes only and not for the purpose of providing legal advice. You should contact your attorney to obtain advice with respect to any particular issue or problem. Nothing here should be construed to form an attorney-client relationship. Also, some of the links in this post may be affiliate links, meaning, at no cost to you, I will earn a small commission if you click through and make a purchase. But if you click, it really helps me make more of these videos! All non-licensed clips used for fair use commentary, criticism, and educational purposes. See Hosseinzadeh v. Klein, 276 F.Supp.3d 34 (S.D.N.Y. 2017); Equals Three, LLC v. Jukin Media, Inc., 139 F. Supp. 3d 1094 (C.D. Cal. 2015).

Special thanks:
Stock video and imagery provided by Getty Images and AP Archives
Music provided by Epidemic Sound
Maps provided by MapTiler/Geolayers

[megapeebs]

"You're going to pay, pal." - legal eagle probably

[Mamuta]

The alternate universe of the bee movie where the humans sue the bees instead

[neekless]

creators who have never used or heard of honey, therefore never agreed to their TOS, still got their affiliate commission stolen by honey. straight up theft.

[onEmEmbErstudios]

Thank you Markiplier for the prediction
Thank you MegaLag for the investigation
Thank you LegalEagle for taking it further stand

[milieg]

Can we appreciate how amazing Megalag's work is that the entire industry took notice?

[MediecreGoddess]

thankfully mr beast's ad was so obnoxious that I refused to download honey on principle.

[hallmlbp]

the full video by MegaLag is really worth a watch, it’s crazy and runs so much deeper. I woulda thought a false advertising lawsuit for their “best discount” claims would be enough on its own. Mad.

[catchable]

I'm not sure if it's exactly the same thing, and you'll probably dig this up on your own, but Honey's actions in this case might count as cookie stuffing, which is considered a form of wire fraud. Ebay, Inc. v. Digital Point Solutions, Inc. could be useful legal precedent.

[afjer]

Even if a creator vetted Honey and REJECTED their sponsorship, their affiliate money STILL gets stolen if their audience installed it from someone else.

What’s wild is the claim “we will find you the best deal” when in fact they’re colluding behind the scenes with businesses to make sure consumers don’t. It’s crazy.

[militantpacifist]

It’s funny how Markeplier called it out literally years ago.

[Tamisday]

It made me so mad because as a consumer I look at as a stranger stealing tips from the waiter who was serving me. I very intentionally directed my tip/affiliate code to the person who provided a service. Someone who did nothing, who doesn’t even work there just snatched it off the table and the waiter would never know.

[Colonal]

This makes so much sense. As a small creator, my affiliate links don't get a ton of use. So when someone tells me in the discord they used my code/link, I can usually immediately find a sale to correlate to that user in whatever dashboard my sponsors have. But there has been so many times when no sale shows up, and Honey probably stole it.

[alpacamale]

Honey wake up, new lawsuit just dropped

[adamel-sawaf]

Honey in a sticky situation, how ironic…

[defaultsplace]

Makes me think of all the content creators who had entire sponsors pull out because they were under the impression the content creator was not making them money due to Honey.

[SomeHobo]

The thing is it’s stealing from creators who never even endorsed honey either.
If someone downloaded it while watching Mr. beast, then bought a 3D printer with CNC Kitchens referral but it got sniped by honey because they already had it, then CNC was hurt even though they never endorsed honey.

Literally everyone who has referral codes, whether they endorsed honey or not, were victimized by honey if it was on the users computer.

[jonathanhibberd]

I had Honey for years. Not once - not even one time - did it find a coupon for me.

[linsqopiring]

I think for a lot of your fans this will be the most satisfying video you've ever made. They messed with the wrong guy!

[Corl]

the thing when you even click just "ok" to hide a honey notification, not even providing anything of reasonable help at all, hijacking the sale, is criminal