Honey has in its terms of services that you accept not to take part in a class action lawsuit and favor arbitration.
It seems like these kind of clause is enforceable usually so I’m curious to see how Legal Eagle will navigate the issue.
Edit: Either the creators sue Honey and they will argue it is not illegal to poach affiliate links because they follow the “last click” rule that is standard (it’s just that they pushed it to the extreme).
Or its the users that are scammed because they were told the best coupon would be used. But if it’s the users, they are under the EULA and should have to comply with the no class action rule.
I’m not a lawyer but this is how I understand the setup for this trial to be.
According to Legal Eagle’s video, Honey could be pocketing affiliate link money from creators that had never even anything to do with them.
It’s installed on viewer’s side, so it makes sense.
I’d also say there are probably limits to what you can enforce arbitration for, especially if you outright lied to your customers, but I am not American and I have no idea how irredeemably fucked up your customer protection laws are.
That’s the thing PayPal Honey is saying they are respecting the “last click” rule and in their eyes there is nothing illegal in that.
Even if the creator as nothing to do with honey they are saying the last click is in honey just before checkout so they get the money. I understand this is a terrible excuse but it seems that’s the defense they will follow. Basically they are hiding behind that stupid last click rule and using it to justify it’s perfectly legal.
Basically Honey says “we just strictly comply to a standard practice in affiliate links”.
Something I wonder is how would it even be possible for vendors to ignore PayPal is doing something fishy.
You got a guy who’s job is to monitor who is getting their affiliate money. He sees PayPal collecting millions of affiliate money.
The other players in this game (of affiliate link) knew very well that honey was doing something fishy. Why didn’t they contest it?
Because they were doing the same kind of “last click” bullshit. If that was so unfair there would be a trial already. They all followed this stupid rule and the megalag video talks about it.
The fact that Linus Tech Tips knew and we are supposed to believe the rest of the affiliate links mafia didn’t see a thing?
So Disney had an arbitration clause in a eula that a user agreed to when they signed up for a streaming trial service and never ended up subscribing. When he died of food poisoning at a restaurant at one of Disney’s amusement parks, his widow looked to be unable to sue the park over it, because he had agreed to that eula by signing up a couple years before.
It was generally perceived that the clause would have been enforceable in that fucked up situation, but Disney backed off when the word got out that the lawyers in the trial were pushing that argument, and they waived the clause. But in that instance, it was never actually ruled on, and many people seemed to think that it was going to be enforced. That’s how fucked the system is when it comes to these clauses.
Disney hoped the clause would be enforceable. At least part of the reason Disney settled out of court was because they didn’t want to challenge that assumption.
You can put whatever clauses you want in a contract. The law still trumps those contracts if it ever comes to enforceability.
I know that story. It’s a lot more nuanced than that.
Thing is, Disney barely had anything to do with the restaurant itself (they’re basically the restaurant’s landowner). And the only thing on which they could attack Disney was to point that the restaurant had a description on Disney’s website… which is part of Disney online services, and subject to their terms of services.
So yeah, grasping at a clause from an old Disney+ subscription is bullshit, but the claim honestly did not make a lot of sense to begin with. The restaurant itself should have been sued to hell, even more so because apparently they reinstated they were allergy compliant several times when asked.
You aren’t wrong, but the usage of the clause the way it was being used was definitely beyond the pale. I don’t think Disney was liable for the restaurants malfeasance, but that lack of responsibility should have rested on the facts of the association or lack thereof, not on some bullshit eula clause for an unrelated product.
It wasn’t as unrelated as it might appear. Firstly, they used their D+ account to make their Disney account. Secondly, the whole point of that argument was that in the Disney account EULA, the relevant one, there is an arbitration clause. They only brought up the D+ account in passing because it has the same clause, emphasizing that they had to read and agree to the clause twice, and if they didn’t catch it it’s not Disney’s fault they lied about reading it. They basically said “look, this is an issue regarding the Disney account, and they said right here they read and understood the terms that include arbitration. And here, they read and agreed to the exact same terms a few months earlier on D+. This shouldn’t be any surprise if they were truthful when they claimed to have read it.”
Disclaimer, arbitration clauses are bullshit and need to be reworked/eliminated as they are generally very anticonsumer and I don’t think it’s good that they have that clause. But accepting that this exists, Disney didn’t really do anything particularly scummy.
A couple things, some of the plaintiffs listed appear to be business, and not users anyway. Regardless, I cannot imagine it would be difficult to find someone who made money via affiliate links and also never used honey
About that is it normal that the other videos are not released?
I feel like he is losing the momentum he had with that video series and the more time he waits the more likely the gag orders or retaliation from PayPal.
What if Megalag can’t release the next videos because a horde of lawyers is already on his back?
Surprisingly I think Honey decided not to be able to sell user data (Ludwig sponsorship’s with honey was pushing this).
Basically they were making so much money on affiliate links they probably thought it wasn’t worth risking to be caught for some privacy reason.
I could see the strategy making sense to release something as the current cycle dies down. His previous expose of the color blind glasses happened over several months
Then it remains to be proven that it is illegal to poach affiliate links like that. Because Honey says they just follow strictly the “last click” rule that is common practice in the field.
It’s bullshit but if that bullshit rule is indeed the standard practice then it will be hard to fight.
Could it not be seen as a deliberate deceit to avoid adequate compensation as per any sponsorship agreement though? Such practice can’t be legal surely?
Even if they tried to weasel it into the terms of a sponsorship agreement one would assume it would be considered null as it goes against the very purpose of the contract?
Feel like Legal Eagle wouldn’t waste their time and resources on a class action if they didn’t have strong enough grounds for a fight? (And would instead make a video explaining why it would be pointless to do so)
Technically, there is not necessarily a partnership in a situation where an affiliate link was stolen. Any user with the extension would see his affiliation given to PayPal.
Also, I can’t help but think it will be very difficult to account for how much money was “redirected” by Honey. The creator would need data from YouTube that I don’t think is logged for much time. So you wouldn’t know who clicked and when and even after that I thing the vendor of the product would need to be involved also.
Who knows what LegalEagle intends to do, they shouldn’t be too clear on their intent and keep their strategy secret. Maybe they hope for some kind of settlement because I think this is more damaging in term of PR than it will ever be in terms of fines. It’s like the recent case of Apple, they choosed to pay to expedite the process but never admitted guilt?
Again I’m no lawyer let’s trust Legal Eagle and see where it goes. But PayPal will be a strong case for sure.
Yeah exactly. You can’t force arbitration on a YouTuber or other affiliate because a user agreed to your Terms of Service. I know our legal system is fucked, but it’s not that fucked.
Here is another video on the topic: https://youtube.com/watch?v=ItiXffyTgQg. This individual is from the law firm working with Devin. He explains that this actually is likely to limit suits from consumers, but not for the class taking action, the creators.
Honey has in its terms of services that you accept not to take part in a class action lawsuit and favor arbitration. It seems like these kind of clause is enforceable usually so I’m curious to see how Legal Eagle will navigate the issue.
Edit: Either the creators sue Honey and they will argue it is not illegal to poach affiliate links because they follow the “last click” rule that is standard (it’s just that they pushed it to the extreme).
Or its the users that are scammed because they were told the best coupon would be used. But if it’s the users, they are under the EULA and should have to comply with the no class action rule.
I’m not a lawyer but this is how I understand the setup for this trial to be.
According to Legal Eagle’s video, Honey could be pocketing affiliate link money from creators that had never even anything to do with them.
It’s installed on viewer’s side, so it makes sense.
I’d also say there are probably limits to what you can enforce arbitration for, especially if you outright lied to your customers, but I am not American and I have no idea how irredeemably fucked up your customer protection laws are.
That’s the thing PayPal Honey is saying they are respecting the “last click” rule and in their eyes there is nothing illegal in that.
Even if the creator as nothing to do with honey they are saying the last click is in honey just before checkout so they get the money. I understand this is a terrible excuse but it seems that’s the defense they will follow. Basically they are hiding behind that stupid last click rule and using it to justify it’s perfectly legal.
Basically Honey says “we just strictly comply to a standard practice in affiliate links”.
So their excuse would be everyone else is doing it? Good luck with that.
Something I wonder is how would it even be possible for vendors to ignore PayPal is doing something fishy.
You got a guy who’s job is to monitor who is getting their affiliate money. He sees PayPal collecting millions of affiliate money.
The other players in this game (of affiliate link) knew very well that honey was doing something fishy. Why didn’t they contest it?
Because they were doing the same kind of “last click” bullshit. If that was so unfair there would be a trial already. They all followed this stupid rule and the megalag video talks about it.
The fact that Linus Tech Tips knew and we are supposed to believe the rest of the affiliate links mafia didn’t see a thing?
A lot of companies were working with honey to have them make sure people didn’t get the best offer. So they knew exactly what was going on.
So Disney had an arbitration clause in a eula that a user agreed to when they signed up for a streaming trial service and never ended up subscribing. When he died of food poisoning at a restaurant at one of Disney’s amusement parks, his widow looked to be unable to sue the park over it, because he had agreed to that eula by signing up a couple years before.
It was generally perceived that the clause would have been enforceable in that fucked up situation, but Disney backed off when the word got out that the lawyers in the trial were pushing that argument, and they waived the clause. But in that instance, it was never actually ruled on, and many people seemed to think that it was going to be enforced. That’s how fucked the system is when it comes to these clauses.
Disney hoped the clause would be enforceable. At least part of the reason Disney settled out of court was because they didn’t want to challenge that assumption.
You can put whatever clauses you want in a contract. The law still trumps those contracts if it ever comes to enforceability.
I know that story. It’s a lot more nuanced than that.
Thing is, Disney barely had anything to do with the restaurant itself (they’re basically the restaurant’s landowner). And the only thing on which they could attack Disney was to point that the restaurant had a description on Disney’s website… which is part of Disney online services, and subject to their terms of services.
So yeah, grasping at a clause from an old Disney+ subscription is bullshit, but the claim honestly did not make a lot of sense to begin with. The restaurant itself should have been sued to hell, even more so because apparently they reinstated they were allergy compliant several times when asked.
https://youtu.be/hiDr6-Z72XU
You aren’t wrong, but the usage of the clause the way it was being used was definitely beyond the pale. I don’t think Disney was liable for the restaurants malfeasance, but that lack of responsibility should have rested on the facts of the association or lack thereof, not on some bullshit eula clause for an unrelated product.
It wasn’t as unrelated as it might appear. Firstly, they used their D+ account to make their Disney account. Secondly, the whole point of that argument was that in the Disney account EULA, the relevant one, there is an arbitration clause. They only brought up the D+ account in passing because it has the same clause, emphasizing that they had to read and agree to the clause twice, and if they didn’t catch it it’s not Disney’s fault they lied about reading it. They basically said “look, this is an issue regarding the Disney account, and they said right here they read and understood the terms that include arbitration. And here, they read and agreed to the exact same terms a few months earlier on D+. This shouldn’t be any surprise if they were truthful when they claimed to have read it.”
Disclaimer, arbitration clauses are bullshit and need to be reworked/eliminated as they are generally very anticonsumer and I don’t think it’s good that they have that clause. But accepting that this exists, Disney didn’t really do anything particularly scummy.
Yeah, I can agree with that.
Disney backed off because they feared it wouldn’t be ruled applicable and didn’t want to create that precedent.
Youtubers who had their affiliate links hijacked aren’t subject to the EULA.
Exactly. The forced arbitration is for Honey users. These random people with affiliate links are not Honey users.
Unless they themselves were also Honey users, perhaps.
A couple things, some of the plaintiffs listed appear to be business, and not users anyway. Regardless, I cannot imagine it would be difficult to find someone who made money via affiliate links and also never used honey
MegaLag has other videos coming. I would assume Honey is also selling a shit ton of purchasing behavior data
I always assumed that was their business model. Can imagine that car content and shopping habits are valuable af.
About that is it normal that the other videos are not released?
I feel like he is losing the momentum he had with that video series and the more time he waits the more likely the gag orders or retaliation from PayPal.
What if Megalag can’t release the next videos because a horde of lawyers is already on his back?
Surprisingly I think Honey decided not to be able to sell user data (Ludwig sponsorship’s with honey was pushing this).
Basically they were making so much money on affiliate links they probably thought it wasn’t worth risking to be caught for some privacy reason.
I could see the strategy making sense to release something as the current cycle dies down. His previous expose of the color blind glasses happened over several months
In this case the class action would be youtubers and other content creators not users of Honey.
Then it remains to be proven that it is illegal to poach affiliate links like that. Because Honey says they just follow strictly the “last click” rule that is common practice in the field.
It’s bullshit but if that bullshit rule is indeed the standard practice then it will be hard to fight.
That’s kind of like a looter invoking the ‘finders keepers’ defense. Last click isn’t a law.
What if there is no law about who gets affiliate money?
That’s okay, because there is a law about interfering with someone else’s contacted agreement.
Could it not be seen as a deliberate deceit to avoid adequate compensation as per any sponsorship agreement though? Such practice can’t be legal surely?
Even if they tried to weasel it into the terms of a sponsorship agreement one would assume it would be considered null as it goes against the very purpose of the contract?
Feel like Legal Eagle wouldn’t waste their time and resources on a class action if they didn’t have strong enough grounds for a fight? (And would instead make a video explaining why it would be pointless to do so)
Technically, there is not necessarily a partnership in a situation where an affiliate link was stolen. Any user with the extension would see his affiliation given to PayPal.
Also, I can’t help but think it will be very difficult to account for how much money was “redirected” by Honey. The creator would need data from YouTube that I don’t think is logged for much time. So you wouldn’t know who clicked and when and even after that I thing the vendor of the product would need to be involved also.
Who knows what LegalEagle intends to do, they shouldn’t be too clear on their intent and keep their strategy secret. Maybe they hope for some kind of settlement because I think this is more damaging in term of PR than it will ever be in terms of fines. It’s like the recent case of Apple, they choosed to pay to expedite the process but never admitted guilt?
Again I’m no lawyer let’s trust Legal Eagle and see where it goes. But PayPal will be a strong case for sure.
Yeah exactly. You can’t force arbitration on a YouTuber or other affiliate because a user agreed to your Terms of Service. I know our legal system is fucked, but it’s not that fucked.
The class is people that use referral codes as an income source, so not the users that would have been subject to the terms of service.
Here is another video on the topic: https://youtube.com/watch?v=ItiXffyTgQg. This individual is from the law firm working with Devin. He explains that this actually is likely to limit suits from consumers, but not for the class taking action, the creators.