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uBlock Origin GPL code being stolen by team behind Honey browser extension

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Re: uBlock Origin GPL code being stolen by team behind Honey browser extension

#271

Post by mcny »

benjaminl wrote: post #265
tantalor wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do we know when Honey started stealing affiliate links? Was it after the acquisition?

[flagged]

> The only thing that I never understood was why brands would allow Honey to be an affiliate. Why would they want to pay Honey any money when Honey doesn’t originate any traffi?

One YouTube channel, theo dot gg has a conspiracy theory about it which is honey:

1. amassed a huge (rabid) user base 2. Offered "protection" to companies

The evidence presented is Amazon dot com affiliates walk on eggshells to avoid breaking Toss that Honey completely tramples on so at the very least honey is not subject to the same tos as everybody. However, Amazon dot com is very aware of honey evidenced by advisory warnings on Amazon dot com website from a few years ago.

So I think basically the strategy here was:

1. Pay a lot of money to buy a user base 2. Offer protection to stores if they do certain things 3. Deliberately don't give the best offers to users if the stores pay this protection money, wreck the store somehow(?) if they don't 4. Profit

Re: uBlock Origin GPL code being stolen by team behind Honey browser extension

#272

Post by kotaKat »

benjaminl wrote: post #265
tantalor wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do we know when Honey started stealing affiliate links? Was it after the acquisition?

[flagged]

> Why would they want to pay Honey any money when Honey doesn’t originate any traffi?

Paying Honey means you can limit the discounts available through Honey, sort of like a shitty protection scheme.

Because Honey bills itself to the consumer as the be-all-end-all coupon and discount app and advertises itself as "we know ALL the coupon codes and discounts", a consumer with the Honey extension will likely not look outside of that for a discount and assume whatever they got from the extortion racket as the end customer was "the best deal".

Re: uBlock Origin GPL code being stolen by team behind Honey browser extension

#273

Post by matheusmoreira »

shwaj wrote: post #94

I know it’s not necessarily the same people, but it feels contradictory for this community to say “copyright infringement isn’t theft” when we’re talking about movies, but use the opposite language when talking about GPL source code.

Yeah, they used the wrong word. No "stealing" of code is happening here. It's just infringement of someone's copyrights. Theoretically, they could be taken to court over it. In practice, courts are a rich corporation's game.

Copyright should not even exist to begin with. GPL is just there to try to use the system against itself by essentially forcing everything it touches to be public domain. GPL is barely above the copyright industry from a moral standpoint. That usually causes people to treat violations of it far more charitably. Nobody feels sorry for the trillion dollar copyright industry.

We live in a world where the same trillion dollar corporations who compare us all to high seas pirates who rape and burn will also engage in AI washing of copyrighted material at industrial scales. That's a far more interesting contradiction than what you're presenting and far more deserving of the people's indignation.

Re: uBlock Origin GPL code being stolen by team behind Honey browser extension

#274

Post by octacat »

twostorytower wrote: post #128
octacat wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except honey does not clarify that it replaces the referral link anywhere. The vast majority of shopping sessions do not have attribution, so adding attribution to them would just drive prices higher for regular users, damaging both users and the sellers.

https://help.joinhoney.com/article/30-how-does-honey-make-mo...

so, it exactly does not mention that it replaces the referral from the original URL you came to buy stuff with. Thanks for the confirmation.

Re: uBlock Origin GPL code being stolen by team behind Honey browser extension

#275

Post by octacat »

ndriscoll wrote: post #217
octacat wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except honey does not clarify that it replaces the referral link anywhere. The vast majority of shopping sessions do not have attribution, so adding attribution to them would just drive prices higher for regular users, damaging both users and the sellers.

It could lead to lower prices if they are indeed replacing referrals. Supposing the retailers notice that this is a huge affiliate, basically understand what's happening, and negotiate a smaller commission for these programs (they obviously have a lot of negotiating power since they aren't really getting referrals and could just ban these programs, destroying them), they might have a lower overall cost. I imagine peo…

This cost would lead that less creators would participate in the referral program. Because the only criteria to participate is how much money they get from it. Though, maybe a good thing, I am tired with all the tech reviews glorifying new stuff, like it is an ad all the way. The good sign if reviewer has a ref link is that the review is probably optimized to be the last place you visit before making a purchase.

Re: uBlock Origin GPL code being stolen by team behind Honey browser extension

#276

Post by grayhatter »

tikhonj wrote: post #136
shwaj wrote: post #94

I know it’s not necessarily the same people, but it feels contradictory for this community to say “copyright infringement isn’t theft” when we’re talking about movies, but use the opposite language when talking about GPL source code.

The GPL does the exact opposite of copyright; the fact that it uses copyright to achieve that is just an implementation detail. If you believe information should be free to share and remix, you would believe that copyright infringement is not theft and that not releasing code is wrong. The fact that the proprietary code is based on GPL code just shows that the ex-Honey folks are hypocrites: they're trying to use copy…

Copyright was created in part, and allows the author of some covered work, to control the terms of how that work is used and distributed; so that both the creator and the user may benefit from that work.

GPL was created in part, and allows the author of some covered work, to control the terms of how that work is used and distributed; so that both the creator and the user may benefit from that work.

The GPL and copyright are both about controlling what other people do with something you made. The MIT, or BSD license, or some other very permissive license that doesn't set down restrictions are arguably different from copyright. But the GPL isn't the opposite of copyright. It's just has different terms of use.

Re: uBlock Origin GPL code being stolen by team behind Honey browser extension

#277

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

exe34 wrote: post #227
Brian_K_White wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The gpl sets terms, employing the right to set terms. The fact that those terms are not for money is the implimentation detail. The fact that there are terms that you are required to agree and adhere to, OR live without the goods, that is not. Just like the normal terms for money, your choice is you can take it according to the terms, or leave it. Not just take it and ignore the terms. It's definitely a special level…

> It's definitely a special level of low to steal something that's already free stealing from the commons, basically.

No, absolutely not the commons.

If you want a mental metaphor of what the vast body of GPL'ed code is, think of a very, very large multinational corporation.

If you want to use their code, you have to join the company. Fortunately for you, all you have to do to join the company is to agree to use the same license for you own code as the company already does. If you agree to that, you are free to use any or all of the code "owned" by the company.

However, if you do not agree to the company's terms - i.e. you wish to use a different license - then you are not a part of the company and have no legal right to use any of the company's code. You may of course continue with your own software, but you cannot benefit from the amassed resource that is the company's own code (though of course reading it is allowed).

Re: uBlock Origin GPL code being stolen by team behind Honey browser extension

#278

Post by mschuster91 »

Alex-Programs wrote: post #202
pseudo0 wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is pretty funny how the MegaLag video claimed it was hard to find discussion of this online, and cited a HN thread from over five years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21588663 I suppose it's easy for us to forget how an average person really doesn't think about how cookies and referral links work.

Yeah, as I watched the video all I could think was "what the fuck did you think they were doing?". I'm surprised technical youtube channels were caught by it, although maybe they did the calculation that the money Honey was paying was worth more than the affiliate sales they'd lose. There's also value to getting that money immediately, rather than at some unknown point in the future. The only part that seemed uncouth…

> I'm surprised technical youtube channels were caught by it, although maybe they did the calculation that the money Honey was paying was worth more than the affiliate sales they'd lose.

... and helping to screw everyone else over in the process. That is what makes advertising for Honey so unethical.

Re: uBlock Origin GPL code being stolen by team behind Honey browser extension

#279

Post by somat »

fallingknife wrote: post #240
bnjms wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being fair these are semantically different meanings of “theft”. 1. Movie copyright is compared, by its owners and the law, to physical theft. This type of theft does not remove the physical use or any use from the owners. 2. GPL copyright only requires sharing changed code. Failing to disclose the changes actually does affect the owners in the way claimed. They’re two different social contracts and we need different…

We do have that. In law copyright infringement is categorically not "theft" and is not even handled by the same type of court. The "copyright infringement (is / isn't) theft" argument is drivel on the same intellectual level as "corporations are people."

right, infringement is not theft, and corporations are not people. Corporations are governments.

The corporation you probably thinking of right now is a small private government to run a for profit endeavor. But note that cities are also corporations.

Re: uBlock Origin GPL code being stolen by team behind Honey browser extension

#280

Post by Brian_K_White »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #277
exe34 wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's definitely a special level of low to steal something that's already free stealing from the commons, basically.

No, absolutely not the commons. If you want a mental metaphor of what the vast body of GPL'ed code is, think of a very, very large multinational corporation. If you want to use their code, you have to join the company. Fortunately for you, all you have to do to join the company is to agree to use the same license for you own code as the company already does. If you agree to that, you are free to use any or all of the…

The body of gpl code is absolutely a commons. I don't know why you imagine otherwise unless you're confused about public domain or something.

There is no joining any company or anything remotely like that no matter how hard you try to squint. The single rule in GPL is no more than any other usage-of-commons rule like don't pee in the pool or litter in the park.

The park is still free for anyone to use, you just can't fence off a part for yourself and start operating your tire-burning business in it. The body of people who either first donated it or the tax payers who voted for it set some terms for usage, and now you can either enjoy the goods under those terms or not.

But what's interesting is how some people have this kind of reaction and try to come up with this kind of argument over the act of being generous.

Are you sure GPL isn't even worse than you said? Why be so nice? Are you sure it doesn't also eat babies?

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