Snopes looking real silly for this 2018 fact check: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/honey-browser-extension/
A fact checker being wrong? How is that possible!!!
uBlock Origin GPL code being stolen by team behind Honey browser extension
381–390 of 469 posts
Re: uBlock Origin GPL code being stolen by team behind Honey browser extension
#382It wouldn’t surprise me if most companies steal GPL code. When code is closed source, how can anyone know?
Usually 'strings' on the binary shows up tell-tale signs. Granted that means the 'smart' infringers are likely to slip through the sieve, but at that point they'll have to essentially be re-writing the code anyway, and lose most of the benefit that they'd get stealing the GPL code (they'd have to hand-roll any bug or security fixes back into their stolen-but-obscured GPL code)
Not if they can use an obfuscator?
Re: uBlock Origin GPL code being stolen by team behind Honey browser extension
#383Earlier 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.
Yep, it's somethings easy to forget that HN isn't actually mainstream; something being discussed on HN doesn't mean it's well known.
Re: uBlock Origin GPL code being stolen by team behind Honey browser extension
#384How does Pie Adblock make money? It's free so I'm suspecting they're doing more affiliate marketing stealing or something similar to Honey.
From the webstore extension overview: > Get Paid to See Ads — Opt-in to see a limited number of partner ads and earn rewards.
After what happened with Honey, I guess this probably means: they replace ads on pages with their own, pocket most of the money, and extort the sites who would have earned money with the ads into partnering with them.
Re: uBlock Origin GPL code being stolen by team behind Honey browser extension
#385I'd only heard of Honey by way of random YouTube thumbnails, I assumed it was some sort of scam. Go figure they're connected to PayPal...
Re: uBlock Origin GPL code being stolen by team behind Honey browser extension
#386Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why would it be incumbent on Honey, or illegal at all? It is a voluntary transaction by two businesses. If the business does not want their codes given out, then they should not agree to Honey’s T&C.
> Why would it be incumbent on Honey, or illegal at all? It is a voluntary transaction by two businesses. There are three businesses involved. A 3rd party (eg YouTube reviewer) has their affiliate code stripped from the page, and as a result is losing out on income. That may be illegal. And the affiliate doesn’t have a business relationship with honey. They didn’t sign anything away with them. Also honey was (until r…
> And the affiliate doesn’t have a business relationship with honey. They didn’t sign anything away with them.
Sure but the affiliate (influencer) has an agreement with said business and another affiliate (honey) has an agreement with same said business. It'll be interesting to see if Honey's agreement allows them to do this.
Can even think of it just like HN. You and I don't have an agreement with HN that lets use edit other user's posts. This doesn't mean somebody can't edit other user's posts.
Re: uBlock Origin GPL code being stolen by team behind Honey browser extension
#387I 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.
Which community are you talking about in the first place?
Re: uBlock Origin GPL code being stolen by team behind Honey browser extension
#388I 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.
They are different senses of the terms. In "copyright infringement isn't theft", "theft" is in the sense if car theft. In the title, "stolen" is in the sense of a stolen idea.
Copyright infringement, while it may be wrong, truely isn't akin to car theft. It is however akin to a stolen idea. A car theft deprives the rightful owner of the car, but they don't otherwise care that the thief now has a car. An idea theft doesn't deprive the thinker of the idea, but they care that the thief is benefiting from the idea without compensation. Yet they don't care if someone becomes aware of the idea, but keeps it to themself.
Re: uBlock Origin GPL code being stolen by team behind Honey browser extension
#389Google removed chrome extensions that do cookie stuffing before: https://www.zdnet.com/article/google-removes-two-chrome-ad-b... PayPal's Honey extension should be pulled by Google for doing the exact same thing. There is no difference and Honey shouldn't get special treatment just because it's owned by PayPal. --- UPDATE: It's criminal wire fraud. Brian Dunning sentenced to 18 months jail for cookie stuffing: https:…
Are you a lawyer? Asking because "cookie stuffing" (which is indeed criminal) refers to the practice of setting a ton of referral cookies for the sites the browser had no intention of visiting, just for the case it will visit them some time in the future. In my understanding it does not refer to setting a cookie for the site the browser is currently on.
Re: uBlock Origin GPL code being stolen by team behind Honey browser extension
#390Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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 No, this is absolutely incorrect. GPL requires copyright (or similar mechanism) to function. Without copyright, anyone could take the GPL'd code and release a compiled…
One can still want much looser copyright. For example, 14 years by default, pay $$ to extend it, increasing exponentially each time (as compensation for stealing from the public domain). At least I'm willing to call extended copyright terms stealing if we're going to call format shifting and other personal use cases stealing.
That just privileges the rich. Just return to the original idea of copyright and limit it to 12 years.