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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

#341

Post by johnnyanmac »

coldpie wrote: post #167
traverseda wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can live in the gift economy or the money economy. Taking stuff from the gift economy and selling it is gross.

I dislike this framing. I was paid money for over a decade to write GPL'd code; I didn't do it as a gift. I release my code under the GPL for selfish reasons: I want others to be able to improve it, and me to be able to take advantage of their improvements. To me, it's not a gift, it's just the most efficient way to write software.

you can work at a charity and still be paid, even though the "non-profit" moniker can confuse layman.

> I release my code under the GPL for selfish reasons: I want others to be able to improve it, and me to be able to take advantage of their improvements.

I suppose that metphor depends on what you think of community efforts. Like say, sharing a food recipe or a workout routine. I see see the framing as "giving it away". Even if your endgoal is an ultimately selfish search of "better recipe/routine to use".

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

#342

Post by skeeter2020 »

pseudo0 wrote: post #197
kristofferR wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before, this is how ALL coupon sites/extensions have worked for decades. I'm frankly baffled it weren't more common knowledge, despite being common sense, before the MegaLag video. Did people really think that sites like retailmenot.com or wethrift.com make you open tabs to the shop you're searching for coupons for before you can see the coupon code just for fun?? Affiliate code stuffing is the coupon provider busine…

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.

I read the HN link after the video though, and it was full of vague misunderstandings of exactly what honey was doing, even if people did understand the technical logistics. Some of the dark patterns honey goes through to get a user to click any link or button is pretty shady.

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

#343

Post by johnnyanmac »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #262
fallingknife wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, custom development could still be a thing under such a framework because there is only a single potential user, but can you imagine how catastrophically expensive that would be? The business of software development would be absolute misery to work in as the core skill would be to write such convoluted, impenetrable, single use code at the pain of being put out of business by source code copiers. Software would…

I'm with you until the final sentence. From my perspective, that's the current state of software development. Hundreds of megabytes of JavaScript and "assets" for what could be a 60KiB bundle of HTML, or a 500KiB Win32 program.

Forgot the name, but it's a variant of Hawthorne's laws for computers. If tech gets faster, programs will work to fill that newfound space and performance. even if it's just a simple web text page.

But no one complains and it lets them ship faster. So not much will change here.

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

#344

Post by f1refly »

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #325
tikhonj wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The more direct solution would be a law that required distributing human-editable code alongside software. No need for copyright or anything remotely similar. Code being copyrightable would just be getting in the way at that point. But in a world where that is politically infeasible, we have to use whatever tools we have at hand to get as close as we can. And, unfortunately, the tool we happen to have is the modern c…

It's also possible such a law (in the US) would violate the first amendment (being "compelled speech").

Laws are just made up by people, we can make up new ones if we want.

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

#345

Post by Xelynega »

Ukv wrote: post #296
benjaminl wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

People are upset that: 1. Honey makes money through deals with retailers to not offer the best coupon code to the extension's users 2. Honey swaps out the referral code from the blog/video/etc. that actually referred you to the product with their own, even when they didn't find any coupon deal Merely "Honey makes commissions from our merchant partners" is not at all a "very upfront" description of that behavior. More…

The two together results in honey essentially being paid instead of real affiliates to suppress coupon codes from you(since they advertise to stores that they direct users away from finding coupons, and towards a more stable discount percentage).

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

#346

Post by Xelynega »

mikeryan wrote: post #312
LiamPowell wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They literally advertise this as a feature on their home page in that they give you X% of what they earn from affiliate links. It says a lot about the influencers advertising it if they did not realise that Honey is taking their affiliate revenue while reading an ad that says they do. More realistically, most of them likely did know that this is what Honey does and determined that honey paid more than any lost revenu…

I think you’re missing the point. Honey is stealing affiliate credits from influencers who don’t have any relationship with them. If a YouTuber posts an link with their own affiliate code and during checkout the user uses the Honey extension to look for coupons Honey steals the affiliate credit even if they don’t have a coupon the YouTuber gets nothing.

*Even if they know there is a coupon, but are hiding it from you because of a partner relationship with the store who hasn't published any coupons to their honey admin portal.

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

#347

Post by Xelynega »

LiamPowell wrote: post #313
paulryanrogers wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It took LTT years to detect this behavior despite it coming up in forums and HN. They then decided to stop accepting sponsorships from them. Sponsored ads also often boasted Honey will get you the best deal anywhere. Yet some have found them knowingly preferring their own coupons even though others users had manually entered and successfully used better coupons from elsewhere (while the extension was installed).

> Sponsored ads also often boasted Honey will get you the best deal anywhere. I agree that this can be called misleading, or even potentially a scam. > It took LTT years to detect this behavior despite it coming up in forums and HN. They're well aware of how affiliate links work, so as I said above, even if they only advertised the coupon part and never the cashback part they'd have to have never bothered to visit th…

Just because they know how affiliate links work, would the wording on Honeys website not lead them to believe they're only being the "affiliate" if they find a deal?

How would they have detected this without doing an investigation themselves into how the tool works, and they don't seem to be the kind of company to do that kind of due diligence when accepting ad deals.

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

#348

Post by Xelynega »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #293
Alex-Programs wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> as I watched the video all I could think was "what the fuck did you think they were doing?". Well, not screwing over their partners and customers? They didn't have to overwrite existing affiliate codes to make lots of money. And the stuff you list in your last sentence is a really big deal.

This is how I keep seeing the discussion going:

1: Honey is doing shady stuff with affiliate links

2: Affiliate links aren't shady, just the stuff they're doing with them

1: So honey is doing shady stuff with affiliate links

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

#349

Post by 14 »

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]

My guess to your question would be that perhaps there is the belief, or maybe data proves it factual, that when someone is considering a purchase and might be on the fence and then they see that Honey can get them a coupon or rewards points that they are then slightly more likely to go through with the purchase thinking they are getting a good deal. If data shows an increase in sales then some might consider affiliating worth it. Just my guess.

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

#350

Post by manquer »

Jolter wrote: post #314
manquer wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both break the civil law , you can absolutely sue the thief for damages for lost property. Typically this is not done because it is not worth the lawyer expenses as recovery chances are pretty slim unless it is a kleptomaniac billionaire maybe , instead you claim insurance to recover on your losses. Similarly copyright theft is also same as any other property theft, you can charge under criminal law as well , typical…

So what’s the case law for violations of the GPL? Did anyone get criminally convicted prosecuted for violating any software license at all, and was anyone convicted? I’m only aware of civil suits in this regard.

There are some in the civil side in last decade or so.

Of the top of my head

- the BusyBox suits from early 2010s

- FSF vs Cisco on Linksys code

- McHardy case over in germany

- Artifex case over Ghostscript

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