Amazon Claims Honey Browser Extension is a Security Risk

[AkatsukiKun]

On 1/10/2020 at 4:37 AM, Sampsy said:

Out of interest - has honey actually saved anyone money? I've had the extension for like 2 years now and it has literally never found me a coupon to use. 

Saved me quite a bit, I knew a single coupon for Lenovo, but Honey had a better coupon for Lenovo's online store. I'd say I saved $120-200 from Lenovo's overpriced online MSRP.

[Unixsystem]

1 hour ago, comander said:

I know someone who works in privacy and security. Once it's deleted it's out of backups within 2 months. The same data could be in two sections though. 

 

 

With that said, historical aggregated logs are kept. From a "can the government use this against me" perspective - probably not. Each log entry presumably has hundreds or millions of people per group. 

I think it depends a lot on the service. I still get emails from Facebook about signing back up despite "deleting" my account 7 or 8 years ago. My understanding is that once you reactivate you get your old account with all your old data exactly how you left it. 

[TetraSky]

Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised. They claim to make money from the merchant, but there's just no way they'd pass up the opportunity to get money from selling your info, too.

 

Also, am I the only one for whom Honey literally never saved a single cent? I'm in Canada and there's usually always only 2 or 3 "codes" (usually the same ones) and none of them ever work. I don't know why I even keep trying to use Honey, I make sure to disable it when I don't shop though.

[Ajukrezi]

Regarding honey working, it has noticed that it is mostly american companys.
i have saved money on the danish version of a american company saved 15% on JBL for example and found coupons on noumerous sites.

but indeed not many local but offcourse honey needs to evolve to beable to handle the small local contry companies.

 

on regards off there privacy,, well yeah but my shopping and search history is known by so many companies  but i dont know if honey is one of them

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

On 1/10/2020 at 5:02 AM, sowon said:

as browser extensions all track browser activity in some form.

*have access to browser activity in some form. wether they track it somewhere is up to the developer. 

[PhantomJaguarr]

Honey helped save me $40 on the chair I bought from Office Depot online. I'll let it stay in my browser a little while longer.

[FezBoy]

 

Yeah ok Amazon just because you track everything everyone buys doesn't mean that you're the only company allowed to

[handymanshandle]

On 1/10/2020 at 3:37 AM, Sampsy said:

Out of interest - has honey actually saved anyone money? I've had the extension for like 2 years now and it has literally never found me a coupon to use. 

it sometimes finds me something that I couldn't already find lol

 

 

[S w a t s o n]

While I chose to uninstall honey after the purchase this reeks of a desperation play by Amazon to ensure that it's own internal analytics are the only collection of each persons shopping data on Amazon, if someone else has it too it's worth less.

[Quinnell]

On 1/11/2020 at 3:48 AM, Sakkura said:

This seems like prime lawsuit material. 

Did you say !?

[Jerakl]

On 1/9/2020 at 9:14 PM, Bitter said:

It's a security risk to Amazon profits LOL

That was my first thought reading the title LMAO

[Inkz]

I wonder if LMG has seen this since they are a big sponsor. 

[Kisai]

3 hours ago, Inkz said:

I wonder if LMG has seen this since they are a big sponsor. 

Honey is currently flogged buy a significant number of youtuber's. Unfortunately I kinda place more suspicion on how Honey works, even if I don't believe Amazon.

 

Think about it, first Honey has to know what your "cart" looks like, and where you are. Are you in the US? Mexico? Afghanistan? Many discounts on products tend to only apply if an item is shipped within the continental US and no longer apply if shipped outside the US, and there is a lot of things that if you buy from the US you get dinged on import taxes since the trade agreements often stipulate that duty-free only applies to items PRODUCED in that country. So if you want to save money on buying that iPhone, you're not going to save it from Amazon.com when they charge you $200 in import taxes.

 

With that said, if you want your privacy, you will immediately uninstall all browser extensions, even ad blockers. You actually create a larger fingerprint when you block the ads outside normal browser behavior because the site will know that you're not viewing the ads when your IP address doesn't show up in the advertising system (if tracked at all.) Honey is the same in this regard, you're willingly asking for ads, and if you're blocking ads, I doubt Honey can work. But don't take my word for it, that's just the logic of how it can do this. Where is it getting the coupons from? ads somewhere. Those ads are either on the site itself, or they're shown to specific markets somewhere and Honey could actively be scraping it from users who aren't blocking ads.

 

But I digress, I have not installed Honey and I can see a dozen different ways Honey can work and go wrong.

[TheMgt]

On 1/9/2020 at 11:14 PM, Bitter said:

It's a security risk to Amazon profits LOL

Bout right.

[iglance tech]

What is the point of using any other Browsers apart from Safari and Chrome. They both are more secure than any

[IdlePX]

Arf. Amazon says "do as I say, not what I do" .

[redbread123]

oh no don't you hate it when honey knows I buy sock, straws, and random gadgets from amazon and targets me with data specific ads. oh wait adblock ah yes. 

[Noctus]

On 1/13/2020 at 12:10 AM, TetraSky said:

Also, am I the only one for whom Honey literally never saved a single cent? I'm in Canada and there's usually always only 2 or 3 "codes" (usually the same ones) and none of them ever work. I don't know why I even keep trying to use Honey, I make sure to disable it when I don't shop though.

I've used Honey for just over the past year. Between take-aways and  purchases for motorbike stuff/Electrical gadgets etc ive probably saved a good 2 or 300 £'s. It does work, just depends on what site your on i guess.

[ARikozuM]

On 1/11/2020 at 4:48 AM, Sakkura said:

This seems like prime lawsuit material. 

...

[Xiee]

Quote

Honey’s browser extension is a security risk. Honey tracks your private shopping behavior, collects data like your order history and items saved, and can read or change any of your data on any website you visit. To keep your data private and secure, uninstall this extension immediately.

Pot, meet kettle.

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

On 1/10/2020 at 9:42 AM, TempestCatto said:

Idk how much I wanna believe this. I mean, PayPal isn't malicious nor owned by some Chinese company. I don't think they could or would have changed anything about Honey so soon after purchasing it. I've been using it a lot for the past couple of years now and haven't had anything weird or suspicious happen.