Tag: Web Browser

Honey Scam

Honey is a browser extension now owned by PayPal. It promised cheap deals to the user by automatically searching for vouchers and applying them at checkout. However, there seems to be some possible foul play in the way that it worked.

Honey was adding itself as a referrer which sounds logical if the user has made their own way there. Referral links give a financial kickback to the referrer so would be fine to give Honey some credit for assuring the end user completes the purchase. 

The end user uses honey with the promise of searching for valid voucher codes to save further money. However, even when Honey couldn’t find anything, they still stole the referral. To the end user, this didn’t affect them because it was the referrer that was missed out. So all those YouTubers that had affiliate links will have lost out money, or future affiliate deals and sponsorships.

The ironic thing is that Honey gained a lot of new users from YouTube partnerships themselves. So YouTube audience would install the Honey extension, then any future affiliate links from the YouTuber (and any other YouTuber) would be then hijacked by Honey. So the YouTuber has been completely scammed but would be unaware it was happening at all.

There was another suggestion that Honey even did deals with shops to limit the discounts offered. So if there was a voucher available for 20% off, they would lie and say they have found 10% off. So Honey promised to find the best deal for you without you making any effort, but they were just finding mediocre deals for you and you could have got a better deal if you did put the effort in.

For some sales, you could say that the value proposition to retailers is dubious since they are giving customers discounts on products they were already about to buy.

Legal Eagle is filing a lawsuit against them, which is going to be interesting to see the outcome.  I’m Suing Honey .

Google’s Incognito Mode: A Privacy Illusion? 

The big companies such as Google and Facebook often seem to make headlines when it comes to privacy and tracking user behaviour in order to sell for profit. So I suppose people shouldn’t be surprised that Google has been collecting data even when using the Incognito mode.

I heard about this in the following article:

https://www.howtogeek.com/google-chrome-incognito-mode-settlement

Brand Loyalty

As an aside, I find it strange how people have such strong brand loyalty. Google Chrome used to be conisdered the far superior browser, gaining popularity over Firefox, and leaving Internet Explorer behind. The rebranded Edge does use “Chromium” which Chrome is built on. Chrome has taken flak for being a memory hog, and with privacy concerns, I expected people to make the switch back to Microsoft.

Last week I mentioned Edge to my Software Developer colleagues and they were disgusted. There was even more disgust when I mentioned how Bing is actually a great search engine, and the free Copilot feature that allows you to easily request AI generated images means it is what I now use. Maybe you can’t trust Microsoft either, but with recent controversies of Google Gemini, and suggestion of political bias in their search results, surely brand loyalty should continue to wane.

Incognito mode

When it comes to Incognito mode, the user is told that it is a “private browsing” feature. It doesn’t store browsing history and active sessions, but it isn’t private from your internet service provider. I thought there were no tracking cookies involved either but I think this is the basis on the lawsuit where Google has been collecting “personal and sensitive data” from users, even when in Incognito.

“Google has agreed to delete (or anonymize) all private data collected from Incognito sessions before December 2023, and it will now block third-party cookies in Incognito Mode by default. Users who open Incognito Mode will encounter a more detailed explanation of the feature’s capabilities, too.”

howtogeek

Conclusion (written by guest writer Bing Copilot using Microsoft Edge)

The case of Google’s Incognito mode serves as a stark reminder that in the digital world, privacy is not always guaranteed. Users must remain aware of the potential for their data to be tracked and used, even when measures are taken to browse privately. As technology continues to evolve, so too must our understanding and expectations of privacy in the online realm.