Short answer: MegaLag’s December 2024 investigation raised specific allegations that PayPal Honey could reassign affiliate credit from creators to itself near checkout, including when it did not provide a usable coupon. Honey’s own policies confirm that affiliate commissions are central to its business model. But “Honey stole creator revenue” and “Honey scammed users” remain allegations—not final legal findings.
As of August 18, 2026, a federal judge has allowed the consolidated litigation to proceed past a motion to dismiss. That means the claims were legally sufficient to continue, not that PayPal violated the law, that every transaction was affected, or that creators have been awarded damages.
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
What Honey is—and how it makes money
Honey is a browser extension, website, and mobile service that searches supported retailers for coupon codes and offers. Its rewards program was historically associated with Honey Gold and is now described in PayPal Honey materials as PayPal Rewards.
The Tool Desk
Outbyte Driver Updater FREEFix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →Outbyte PC Repair FREERepair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →PayPal announced its acquisition of Honey in 2019. Honey says it earns commissions from merchant partners when members use the service to find savings or activate rewards, and that it returns part of that revenue to users through rewards. That commission model is the reason affiliate attribution matters.
Honey’s own explanation is available in its help documentation. Its U.S. privacy statement, last updated October 1, 2025, also describes shopping and transaction data the service may collect and use for analytics, commission collection, and rewards management.
How affiliate attribution normally works
Affiliate marketing generally works like this:
- A creator links to a retailer using a special affiliate URL.
- The URL carries the creator’s affiliate identifier.
- The shopper visits the retailer.
- A cookie or similar tracking mechanism records the referring affiliate.
- If the shopper completes an eligible purchase under the program’s rules, the creator may receive a commission.
Affiliate programs do not all use the same attribution method. Some use last-click attribution, meaning the most recent qualifying referral receives credit. Others use first-click or multi-touch models. Merchant and affiliate-network contracts may also contain “stand-down” rules requiring a coupon or rewards service not to overwrite an existing referral unless it materially contributes to the sale.
The court’s discussion of the case explains that an affiliate click can store a tracking code or cookie containing the marketer’s identifier. In practical terms, the retailer may pay the same total commission either way; the dispute is often about which party receives credit.
What MegaLag alleged
In a December 2024 investigation, YouTuber MegaLag presented demonstrations and allegations concerning Honey’s behavior near checkout. The original investigation video alleged that:
- Honey could change or replace a creator’s affiliate attribution close to checkout.
- Honey could receive affiliate credit even when it found no usable coupon.
- Interacting with the extension—including dismissing a prompt—could allegedly trigger a referral or tracking event.
- The change in attribution was not apparent to shoppers or creators.
The important distinction is between what the video demonstrated or appeared to demonstrate and what has been legally established. The investigation became the basis for public controversy and later litigation, but a video alone does not prove criminal fraud or establish liability in every transaction.
What “stealing creator revenue” means technically
The allegation is not that Honey directly removed money from a creator’s bank account. It is that Honey changed the tracking information used by a retailer or affiliate network.
For example, suppose a viewer clicks a creator’s affiliate link and then shops at a retailer. If Honey later replaces the creator’s affiliate identifier with its own, the retailer may attribute the sale to Honey. If only one commission is paid, the creator could lose that commission while Honey receives it.
Free tools Windows power users keep installed
One-click scans. No signup required.
Whether the creator was legally entitled to the payment depends on the merchant’s contract, the affiliate network’s attribution rules, the creator’s proof that they generated the sale, and whether Honey provided a qualifying service. That is why “diverted,” “reassigned,” or “allegedly overwrote” is more precise than stating categorically that money was stolen.
Did Honey scam shoppers?
The consumer allegation is related but different. Questions raised by the investigation and coverage include whether Honey always found the best available coupon, whether it could earn an affiliate commission when no discount was applied, and whether shoppers understood that using the extension could affect a creator’s referral credit.
Those concerns should not be overstated. Coupon availability changes by retailer, date, account, location, and checkout conditions. It is not established that Honey universally failed to find the best price or that every user lost money.
Rank #3
A shopper could receive a real benefit from a coupon, rewards offer, or cashback-style incentive while a creator allegedly lost attribution. Conversely, Honey could potentially earn a commission even when the shopper saved nothing. These are separate economic effects:
Recommended Free Tools
- Shopper: May receive a discount, rewards, no benefit, or an unsuccessful coupon search.
- Creator: May receive or lose affiliate credit depending on the attribution rules and tracking behavior.
- Merchant: May pay a commission to whichever affiliate receives credit.
- Honey: May earn commission revenue and share part of it through rewards.
What Honey’s policies disclose
Honey says it collects shopping-related information on supported sites, which may include retailer names, page views, product information, prices, availability, search queries, and transaction information. Its privacy materials say this information may support analytics, commission collection, and rewards management, and state that Honey does not sell users’ information.
The extension’s operation also requires access to shopping pages. Honey explains its Chrome “read and change” permission here.
These disclosures explain how shopping data and commissions fit into the product, but they do not resolve the central dispute: whether Honey improperly overwrote third-party affiliate identifiers. A disclosure that a company earns commissions is not, by itself, permission to violate a merchant’s affiliate rules or another party’s contract.
Honey’s terms, listed as last updated April 18, 2025, generally provide for binding individual arbitration, a class-action waiver, and a release of claims to the extent permitted by law. Those contractual provisions do not themselves establish that the alleged affiliate practices were lawful.
PC Slower Than It Used to Be?
A free scan shows the junk files, broken settings and background clutter dragging Windows down - then fixes them in one click.Free scan · Windows 10 & 11Crashes, No Sound, or Screen Glitches?
Random freezes, missing sound and display glitches usually trace back to one bad driver. Find and replace yours safely.Free scan · under a minuteWhat the lawsuit alleges
The consolidated case is styled In re PayPal Honey Browser Extension Litigation, Northern District of California, case 5:24-cv-09470. Plaintiffs include creators and affiliate marketers who allege that PayPal and Honey diverted commissions.
The second amended complaint, filed January 5, 2026, characterizes the alleged conduct as “cookie stuffing.” It alleges that Honey used hidden tabs, refreshed merchant pages, or similar techniques to mimic a referral and replace an existing affiliate identifier—even when Honey found no coupon or when the shopper dismissed its prompt.
Those statements are plaintiffs’ allegations. A complaint is not evidence of a final fact finding, and it does not establish that every Honey transaction worked that way.
What the judge actually decided
In 2026, a judge denied PayPal’s later motion to dismiss the amended complaint. The order allows the plaintiffs’ claims to continue.
That ruling does not establish that:
- PayPal violated the law;
- Honey unlawfully diverted every creator’s commission;
- all users or creators were affected;
- creators suffered a particular total loss;
- the plaintiffs have won damages; or
- Honey’s current behavior is identical to conduct alleged to have occurred through December 2024.
The earlier court discussion also shows why attribution and traceability matter. Plaintiffs initially faced the argument that lost commissions could result from a merchant’s last-click system rather than PayPal directly controlling the merchant’s payment. The amended complaint added more specific allegations and contractual theories. The case surviving dismissal means the allegations were sufficient at that procedural stage—not that they have been proven on the merits.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Should you uninstall Honey?
Uninstalling Honey is reasonable if you prioritize creator affiliate attribution, want to minimize shopping-extension permissions, or do not consider its savings and rewards worth the trade-off. It prevents future extension activity but cannot retroactively restore a commission that may already have been reassigned.
Honey’s official removal instructions are available here. The usual paths are:
- Chrome: Three-dot menu → More tools → Extensions → Honey → Remove → confirm.
- Firefox: Menu → Add-ons or Extensions → Honey → Remove.
- Edge: Menu → Extensions → manage Honey → Remove or Uninstall.
- Opera: Open extensions, locate Honey, and remove it.
- Safari: Safari → Settings or Preferences → Extensions → disable or uninstall Honey. Older macOS versions may also require removing the application from Applications.
If you keep Honey
- Disable it except when intentionally testing a coupon.
- Do not assume “no coupon found” means the extension did not interact with the retailer.
- Compare the retailer’s direct price with other coupon sources.
- Visit a creator’s affiliate link again after disabling extensions that can alter checkout attribution.
- Avoid running multiple coupon, cashback, price-comparison, or shopping extensions simultaneously.
Honey’s terms acknowledge that other extensions or similar services can make transaction tracking difficult. Private browsing, ad blockers, anti-tracking settings, browser updates, competing extensions, and merchant-specific rules can also change results.
Do these 3 things before closing this tab:
1Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors2Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute3Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsWhat creators and publishers can do
Creators should document repeatable behavior rather than treat one missing commission as proof of wrongdoing. A practical test can include:
- Create a clean browser profile with Honey and other shopping extensions disabled.
- Record the creator’s affiliate URL, identifier, redirects, cookies, and relevant network requests.
- Run a comparable transaction with Honey installed and active.
- Record what happens after opening, activating, or dismissing Honey.
- Compare affiliate-network reports, allowing for delays, returns, cancellations, fraud checks, and reconciliation.
- Review the merchant program’s rules on coupon extensions, cookie overwriting, last-click attribution, and stand-down obligations.
- Preserve timestamps, order IDs, screenshots, browser and extension versions, and network traces.
Testing has limitations. A changed cookie does not automatically prove that a paid commission changed hands. A creator can also lose credit because a cookie expired, the order was returned, the merchant excluded the product, or the program used last-click attribution. Results may differ by retailer, affiliate network, country, browser, and extension version.
What about alternatives?
Manual retailer coupons, email discounts, cashback portals, coupon databases, and price-comparison tools can all be useful. Options readers may encounter include Rakuten, Capital One Shopping, and RetailMeNot.
None should be assumed to be automatically unbiased or free of privacy and attribution issues. Cashback and coupon services commonly depend on affiliate economics. Before using an alternative, ask what data it collects, what permissions it needs, when it claims the last click, and whether it can overwrite another referral.
Quick wins for a faster PC:
Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →Quick Recap
Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply.
