In recent years a commercial practice has shaken the YouTube community to its core, built on a mechanism as simple as it is invisible: an ordinary pop-up. The platform at the center of the case is Honey, the well-known browser extension owned by PayPal that promises to hunt down discount codes automatically at checkout when you shop online. What it does, or at least what it is supposed to do, is scour the web for those coupons on the user’s behalf.

It all looks legitimate — so much so that it has been advertised by influential creators, unaware of the trap hidden behind that seemingly harmless mechanism. For years, thousands of YouTubers promoted Honey as a sponsor in their videos. Behind that mechanism, however, sat a catch: by promoting Honey, they were unknowingly destroying one of their main revenue streams, namely affiliate commissions.

But how does Honey work?

To understand Honey’s impact on monetization, you have to look at what happens behind the scenes of a browsing session. When a user clicks a YouTuber’s affiliate link, a tracking cookie is set that guarantees the creator a commission for recommending the purchase.

And this is exactly where Honey comes in. At checkout, the extension activates and simulates a coupon search, and in that split second the switch happens: it overwrites the creator’s tracking with its own. The move is almost invisible — by clicking the pop-up to apply the discount, the user unknowingly authorizes the swap of the affiliate link.

And if no coupons are available? The strategy does not change. Even when the user simply clicks to dismiss the pop-up announcing that no discounts were found, that click still lets the platform generate a new tracking link pointing to Honey.

In both cases the system is the same: the economic credit for the purchase is pulled out of the creator’s hands and redirected to the extension. The end result is that the user completes the purchase convinced they have supported the YouTuber, while the commission flows entirely into Honey’s coffers.

A YouTuber’s investigation

The veil over this system was lifted by the YouTuber MegaLag in December 2024. According to his investigation, Honey misrepresented its own identity, defrauded influencers and adopted questionable practices such as opening hidden tabs to simulate referral links — thereby securing a commission on every online sale and effectively taking legitimate revenue away from creators’ affiliate programs.

Is it actually fraud?

As of today, the Honey case does not constitute fraud recognized as illegal. It is instead a widely discussed controversy, based on MegaLag’s video investigation and on various user reports accusing the company of opaque practices.

In December 2024, three law firms filed a federal class action against PayPal, alleging interference with contractual and economic relations, unjust enrichment and violation of California’s unfair competition law.

On January 3, 2025, the tech outlet GamersNexus filed a further class action through the law firm Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy, repeating the same allegations.

The suits were initially dismissed for insufficient evidence of harm, but in January 2026 an amended complaint was filed, so the litigation is not over yet.

As a result, there is currently no ruling declaring the practice illegal fraud. Honey, for its part, defends its business model, saying it follows standard affiliate-marketing norms.

Editor’s note

This article was originally published in Italian on money.it by Giulia Sami on August 16, 2026 as «Il caso Honey, spiegato. Il pop-up degli sconti che dirotterebbe i guadagni degli YouTuber». It has been translated and adapted for an international audience by the Money.it International desk.