Position Paper 2- Breaches of Ethics

 The Honey Scam

If you are anything like me, you have probably encountered at least one YouTuber or Influencer on another platform talking about the Honey Extension. Honey is an internet add-on that helps shoppers find coupons and cheaper deals while shopping online. Customers can insert coupon codes into the websites that they are shopping at in order to save money. Honey earns a commission from each purchase made through the extension, and in return some customers earn money with Honey's cash-back system. 

The extension was initially launched in 2012 and was acquired by PayPal in 2020. At the height of its popularity, over 20 million people had the extension installed. This widespread use is due in no part to content creators providing advertisements in their own videos. Popular creators such as Mr. Beast and PewDiePie were among the most popular YouTubers to provide personal advertisements for Honey within their videos. 

Much like other creator-backed advertisements, Honey allows for content creators to provide their viewers with a specialized affiliate link to use when purchasing products online. This link allows for the commission to go to the creator, providing them with extra payment for guiding customers to Honey. Affiliate links often use a method known as "last click attribution", which sends the commission to the person that the customer last interacted with before making a purchase. 

Despite early users being incredibly satisfied with Honey's performance, both customer and creator alike, certain creators began to notice that their earnings from Honey were rapidly declining. One popular YouTuber, MegaLag, began to suspect that Honey was removing the opportunity for creators to receive their commission when advertising the extension to their followers. He, alongside many other content creators, noticed that the links used to provide the commission seemed to switch to a link that redirected the commission to the Honey company at the last second. These suspicions began to circulate around the internet, frustrating many content creators. 

@thinkmediaofficial I Lost $100,000 To The 'Honey' Scam #affiliatemarketingtips #scamalert #scammed ♬ original sound - Think Media

In order to fully understand the weight of this suspicion, it is important to recognize the widespread use of affiliate marketing in modern media. From the lifestyle influencers that provide advice to millions to creators that provide commentary on current events, content creators from all genres form partnerships with various brands. These partnerships often come with the creator providing advertisements within their own content in return for receiving free products or a commission, such as with Honey's partnerships. For many content creators, affiliate marketing is a foundational source of income and often the income that they solely rely on for funding their lifestyle or their future content. 

Affiliate marketing not only generates more revenue for brands but also provides positive PR for the brand. Viewers that see their favorite content creators using products or services in their videos are more likely to engage in them due to seeing similar individuals utilizing them.

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Because affiliate marketing brings so much attention to brands, it is no surprise that the negative attention that Honey's partners have begun to give to the extension has painted it in a bad light. Countless YouTubers have spoken out about the Honey controversy, including Markiplier, an extremely popular gaming YouTuber. 

@dailydealbandit He’s so happy that he knew😂 #markiplier #honey #scam #allegations ♬ Stargazing - Marcelo De Carvalho

As the claims against Honey gathered more traction across the internet, several law firms were contacted to investigate. Firms such as Cotchett Pitre & McCarthy (CPM) and Stueve Siegel Hanson began accepting claims regarding losses from affiliate commissions. CPM filed a class action lawsuit in January 2025 alongside GamerNexus in order to help creators who believe that their partnership contracts have been breached. 

While these law firms are still in the investigative stages, these events have had irreversible effects on Honey's reputation. According to the University of Richmond, the plaintiffs in these class action lawsuits are looking to receive compensation for the financial damages that creators have experienced. The negative publicity that Honey has received in the past few months has drastically decreased the number of people that still use it, having lost over 4 million users as of May 2025. 

These recent events regarding Honey's reputation are a direct result of what happens when companies do not remain transparent about how they operate with their partners. Even if a brand is able to establish an excellent, influential reputation, it can still be impacted by claims of unethical actions. Honey's partnerships will most likely continue to be negatively affected as the lawsuits take further steps, serving as a reminder to similar companies.