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Does Honey Compromise Your Privacy? - The Most Popular Online Coupon Finder - YouTube
Channel: TritoxHD
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Hey everyone, welcome to another video.
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Iâm sure yâall have heard of the Chrome
extension Honey, a program designed to find
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promo codes and coupons across the Internet
and automatically apply them to your shopping
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cart on whatever website youâre using.
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They sponsor countless YouTubers [clip of
Cody Koâs âImagines Part 2â] and it
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has been downloaded over 17 million times
since its release.
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Iâve even started using it after seeing
so many ads on YouTube and itâs saved me
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money.
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The reason it took me so long to start using
it after having seen so many of these ads
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is that Iâm usually pretty skeptical about
these types of programs.
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But their marketing team did their job really
well and I folded and got the app.
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Like I said, itâs saved me money.
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As I do with most apps, I simply clicked through
the user agreement and threw it onto my Chrome
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browser, not thinking twice about it.
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A few days ago, I was watching a Cody Ko video
as I sat in my coronavirus-induced isolation,
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and sure enough Honey had sponsored one of
his videos.
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For some reason, this time I began wondering
how Honey makes money.
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Iâve wondered that before but wasnât curious
enough to look into it.
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Regardless, I decided to start looking online
for some answers.
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At first, it all seemed pretty standard in
terms of data collection and privacy, and
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its money-making process made sense.
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There were a couple things that concerned
me, and I want to share what I found, but
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first I want to briefly look at how it started
and how it became so prominent.
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In 2012, one of Honeyâs co-founders, Ryan
Hudson, was ordering pizza and he wished he
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had a coupon to save some money on the meal.
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That same night, he threw together a prototype
that would find coupons online that a customer
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could apply to a purchase.
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This prototype became Honey, which was launched
that same year.
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After several years of not being able to convince
investors to put their money behind a browser
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extension, Hudson took a job at an advertisement
company.
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However, through word of mouth and Reddit,
Honey began growing pretty organically.
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Hudsonâs co-founder, George Ruan, is still
CEO and the company now has over 200 employees
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worldwide.
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What began as somewhat of an overlooked startup
and has now become a household name on the
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Internet.
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All in all, not bad for trying to save some
money on pizza.
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With that being said, I want to address the
original concern for me looking up Honeyâs
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processes: how they make money.
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After digging a bit further, it seems like
the main way Honey makes money is through
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its commission with affiliate businesses.
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Essentially, an affiliate business will provide
Honey with a discount code, and when you are
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shopping on that affiliate businessâs website,
Honey will provide you with that discount
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code.
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Honey will get a chunk of the money from that
sale.
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This means that the discount codes that are
often âfoundâ by Honey are actually given
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to them by these affiliate businesses; they
arenât randomly found online by Honeyâs
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software.
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In this way, Honey isnât even utilizing
your personal data in the money transaction.
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Instead, the data collection that is actually
taking place is used to streamline your shopping
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process, but more on that later.
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In addition to this baseline service, Honey
also makes money through its Honey Gold program.
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Honey Gold functions as a rewards program
where the more often you use its service,
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the more points you can earn.
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When you earn 1000 points, you can exchange
the points in for gift cards for online stores
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like Amazon.
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Itâs a pretty reasonable, free program that
rewards loyalty to ensure that people keep
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using Honeyâs services.
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Now, letâs address one of the most important
questions regarding Honeyâs data collection:
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is it selling your data?
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To answer that succinctly, no, it isnât
selling your data.
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But the reality is a little more nuanced than
that.
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On a basic level, Honey needs to know some
surface-level information about you in order
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to do its job well.
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This means it utilizes cookies to keep this
data and make sure you can make the most of
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their service.
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By signing up with Honey, the user agreement
mentions that the data theyâll be collecting
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includes your login, bank or credit card info.,
if you use their app or Honey Pay, items added
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to your drop list, friends you refer to Honey,
stores you follow on Honey, your type of device,
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deviceâs unique ID, operating system, IP
address, event stamps, and error logs.
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Some of those last ones may seem concerning
to you, but Honey clarifies on their agreement
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that: âThis data allows us to make sure
Honey products are working correctly, to make
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your experience better, and to detect and
prevent fraud.
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Also, to help us gauge the effectiveness of
our communications and understand how our
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users engage with our services, we use common
digital tools that allow us to see if you
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opened an email we sent or visited a link
in those emails.â
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Essentially, they track this data to make
sure Honey is running smoothly and also to
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see what the most common devices and operating
systems are.
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They can then use this information to market
their services to people with the most common
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devices and operating services or simply focus
their efforts where they are most commonly
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needed.
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Additionally, Honey does gather information
on pre-approved sites in order to give you
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personalized recommendations and find item
availabilities on the site in question.
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This effectively tracks your shopping habits
to better your overall experience.
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This isnât inherently bad; if anything,
it makes a lot of sense that a service like
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Honey would do this in order to make the user
experience as good as it can be and broaden
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their appeal.
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With that in mind, it does come at the expense
of strict privacy.
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In the words of cybersecurity analyst David
Janssen, who took a deep look into Honeyâs
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safety, a general rule is that âthe more
you share, the more effective the app will
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be, and the less privacy youâll have.â
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An interesting back-and-forth regarding Honey
happened between Amazon and Honeyâs parent
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company PayPal.
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Like I mentioned before, PayPal purchased
Honey in November of 2019.
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In the following month, this warning [insert
warning] began popping up on Amazon usersâ
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browsers.
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The warning read that Honeyâs browser extension
posed a security risk and that it collects
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data on the user.
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While Amazon is right with its statement,
it shouldnât be a surprise that most extensions
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and similar Honey-like services collect data.
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Itâs an important part of its service for
tailoring its experience to each user.
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So should users be considered about Amazon
placing this kind of warning on its page?
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In short, not really.
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It shouldnât be new information to Honeyâs
users nor is the data collection all that
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bad, as I mentioned before.
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Perhaps most importantly, Honey doesnât
sell this information to third-party companies
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which eliminates one of its biggest concerns
with a lot of its users.
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Another important note to keep in mind for
this exchange is that Amazon may be feeling
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threatened by Honey and its PayPal parents.
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Both Amazon and PayPal are sites for monetary
transactions and PayPalâs purchase of Honey
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could threaten Amazonâs dominance for web
purchasing, through a system, like Honeyâs,
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that charges retailers.
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So maybe Amazon posting the warning is less
about their concern about their customersâ
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privacy and more about foiling a threatening
up-and-coming competitor.
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The last main note that I want to make about
Honey is that the cybersecurity firm, RiskBased
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Security, uncovered a vulnerability in Honeyâs
browser extension.
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This vulnerability was that Honey, when activated
from the toolbar, had its code âinjectedâ
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into the website in use.
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Because Honeyâs code was now in the websiteâs
code, the website could theoretically control
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Honeyâs code.
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RiskBased Security alerted Honey to this danger
and Honey quickly patched it up.
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Since then, there hasnât really been any
questionable vulnerabilities surrounding Honey.
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Honey itself states that they use measures
that âinclude limiting access, using encryption,
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testing for vulnerabilities, advanced malware
detection, employing pseudonymization and
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anonymization techniques, and more.â
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From what I can tell, Honey has implemented
as much security as they can to ensure their
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usersâ privacy remains safe.
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Lastly, as I get to my final thoughts, I do
want to point out that I read through Honeyâs
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user agreement and I have to say, I was actually
really reassured by it.
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One of their first sentences is that they
âdo not sell your personal information.
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Ever.â
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There doesnât seem to be any suspicious
loopholes or concerns.
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Honey seems to be aware that, in order to
be successful, they need to have the loyalty
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and faith of its users.
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And theyâve lived up to that.
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With that in mind, I would give you the same
warning I would give about any online service.
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There is always the possibility of a vulnerability
or of a security compromise.
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Honey seems to be on your side but that doesnât
stop other ill-intentioned people from getting
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to your information.
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Honey is doing what it can to stop this, but
even the most intense measures can be compromised.
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So, in the context of Internet privacy and
security, is Honey safe?
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Yeah, itâs almost entirely safe.
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So feel free to use it for online shopping
and to save some money.
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Before ending the video, I would like to thank
the sponsor for this video, Honey.
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With Honey, you can -
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Nah Iâm just kidding, this video isnât
sponsored and definitely not by Honey.
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Hopefully you can get a better idea about
this extension and make sure youâre staying
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safe on the wild lands of the Internet.
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