When I watched the original Honey scam video, I wondered whether switching affiliate cookies is technically fraud. I liked MegaLag’s explanation of how they’re taking credit for a sale that they didn’t generate. (I.e., Honey wasn’t the one who referred the customer to the store or promoted the product.) Effectively taking credit for a sale seems like fraud.
I think the rest of the stuff is pretty obviously fraud. (E.g., promising the best deals but deliberately giving worse coupons.)
Even though I read ET’s stuff about big companies being bad, I was surprised that PayPal would engage in stuff this blatant. Despite feeling convinced by ET’s claim that big companies are bad, I guess I still felt that they’d be way more subtle and not this flagrant.
I was surprised that even Microsoft(!) allegedly did affiliate cookie switching via their Edge browser. Microsoft is at times the world’s most valuable company and I think is pretty well-regarded these days. (Also, Bill Gates is acclaimed as a philanthropist.) If even Microsoft does this kind of stuff, then I suppose I should be way more pessimistic about all the other big companies.
MegaLag’s new video also made me wonder whether abusing coupon codes is technically fraud. I guess using a coupon code intended for, e.g., veterans or employees is kind of fraudulent (if one’s not actually a veteran or an employee). An analogy that comes to mind is sharing one’s Netflix password with friends so that they can use Netflix for free. According to Perplexity, that might be illegal:
In the UK, the Intellectual Property Office has said that password sharing can breach copyright law and might, in theory, attract civil or criminal sanctions [Perplexity’s source]
(Besides, I’d guess it violates Netflix’s ToS.)