Is Honey stealing from Creators?

Thanks for reading the first DRPCRD newsletter of 2025. We aim to creator knowledge and joy in equal measure 🥸. We also get creators in our network to write their own pieces, so read below for the latest one by Ollie Smith.

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🍯 Is the Honey app stealing from creators?

There’s a big adtech scandal heating up, and a lot of people might not have seen it yet. The voucher-hunting chrome extension app, Honey (owned by Paypal) is accused of hijacking the affiliate commission from creators and websites who drive traffic on behalf of online retailers.

What does this all mean? (in short)

Affiliate schemes are set up by retailers, who pay commission to anyone who drives a sale on their website. They might pay a % of the basket value or a fixed fee, or a blend of different rewards. You might see them on review sites, bloggers, and more recently embraced by social media creators when talking about products. You have to sign up to the scheme to get commission and be approved (an important thing to note).

How it works - you’re a creator reviewing some clothing, you talk about a few items and link people out to buy the same stuff. In the background, you’ve applied some tracking so the retailer knows, when your community buys items, that you sent them - and you get rewarded once they’ve checked out. These schemes primarily work on “last click attribution” - where the very last thing the user interacts with gets the credit for the sale.

What’s the scandal?

If you’re not familiar, Honey is a chrome extension app that fires into action when you checkout on most websites. They promise to automatically try a bunch of voucher codes, and whichever one they try that gives you the biggest discount, they’ll apply for you - saving you having to look yourself.

Sometimes you get you a nice unexpected discount, other times you don’t. When you don’t, they cleverly position this as “you’re getting the lowest price!”, a positive spin on not getting a discount I guess.

The allegation is (there are a few, but mainly) - Honey is abusing its position on the checkout page to change a users cookie to their referral, even when they don’t find you a better code. So creators and reviewers spend time making content, building an audience and driving them to a retail site, only for Honey to “steal” the commission right at the end, for doing essentially nothing.

There’s a big movement on social media about the story, including a class action lawsuit against Paypal over it. There’s also a rumour Honey has lost 3 million users to its app in the last few days through a boycott movement.

What do we think at DRPCRD?

It’s a complex issue. On the surface it sounds like a dodgy practice, but whether it’s illegal and how to stop it is more complicated.

First up - last click attribution is unreliable for many reasons. No-ones journey to a sale is ever completely linear anyway. Affiliates have relied on it for 20+ years, so the fact it still gets used and the fact it wasn’t abused like this until now is surprising.

Second - if you have sign up and be approved to be on affiliate schemes, what will the affiliate networks and their retailer customers do about this? Will they throw Honey off their schemes? Why would users boycott Honey if it finds discounts? Will they move to app-based programs like TikTok shop? The power is with the brands.

Which comes to the Third point - when users click on affiliate links on sites or social media, do they know they’re being cookied for commission purposes? The case against Paypal cites a law around “interference with a contract” (US law), implying Honey interferes with an established contract between the creator and the users who click on the links. But how many regular people even know affiliate schemes exist? (if you’re reading this, you’re not regular - you’re in advertising I’m afraid).

Whatever happens in court, I think the case will hopefully drive big changes in the ways social media sales are tracked, and drive innovation in how creators are rewarded.

🧐 Creator tip: Ollie Smith tells us how he ended up as a top #gaming creator

Ollie Smith, posting under the username OllMS, is one of the top TikTokers in the UK to make content around Call of Duty. Like so many creators, he started making content during lockdown almost 5 years ago.

Becoming a full-time content creator wasn’t something I originally planned for, but the COVID-19 pandemic changed everything. With life on pause, my main way of staying connected with friends became playing video games, especially Call of Duty: Warzone. I spent countless hours immersed in the game and started sharing clips on TikTok just for fun. To my surprise, one of those videos blew up, racking up millions of views. That moment sparked something in me—I realised how rewarding it felt to entertain so many people.

Motivated by this newfound passion, I upgraded my gaming setup to create better-quality content. As I kept sharing, more and more people connected with what I was putting out, and before long, I had built an amazing community. With my audience growing, opportunities started rolling in—brand deals, ad revenue, and everything I needed to make content creation a full-time gig.

Fast forward a few years, and I’ve partnered with some of the biggest brands, attended exclusive gaming events, and built a following of over 2.5 million people. Across platforms like YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook, my content has amassed more than 1.5 billion views. Looking back, diving into this career was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made—I couldn’t imagine doing anything else.

Follow Ollie’s TikTok by clicking right here.

📈 Trend of the week: #aifilter #viggle

Ai image-to-video services are quickly offering a mental level of capability, and it’s still only the middle of January. Anyone can now put an image into a meme, or create a whole video from a photo. Cue anyone and everyone making videos now, which shakes up the creator world massively (for those who really get it right).

For brands - it’s another opportunity to create a stream of content cheaply and quickly, and stay plugged into trends. The one below is made by viggle, which looks like the current service-of-choice for TikTokers.

Thank you for reading this. To talk creators to us, email Will and Tim on [email protected]. Chat soon!