Are you a lawyer? Asking because "cookie stuffing" (which is indeed criminal) refers to the practice of setting a ton of referral cookies for the sites the browser had no intention of visiting, just for the case it will visit them some time in the future. In my understanding it does not refer to setting a cookie for the site the browser is currently on.
Is he suing for class action on the claims of cookie stuffing? I haven't found the actual case in either link (the second one is for "creators" only), so I can't get the answer myself.
No, he's claiming breach of contract and unfair practices. Cooking stuffing is just a customer issue, not a partner one. He would have no standing on that front.
My understanding of US law is extremely limited, but seeing it's a class action, would the lawyer be able to file the suit on behalf of the customers instead, if e.g. they thought it has a better chance to succeed as such? And if not, is the fact that this suit is filed on "breach of contract and unfair practices" claims presenting any evidence that Honey engaged in a specific legally defined practice of "cookie stuffing"?
The event is very fresh. <24h as I write this comment. The claims are not laid yet, but as far as I can see, it's starting with wire fraud, and they'll go from there.
I don't think they're in the (private) discovery phase now.
P.S.: I'm not a US citizen, so I'm not familiar law terms in the US, if the above comment makes no sense, please forget what I said and move to next comment in the chain. Thanks.
I see. To be clear, I’m not saying what Honey did is not criminal activity, I’m just saying what they did does not look to me as if it qualifies as “cookie stuffing”. It might still be illegal, for a different reason. (Obligatory IANAL.)
My understanding from comments on reddit is that part of the suit relies on tortious interference, basically that honey is damaging the relationships between content creators and vendors by masking the source of referrals and therefore making the vendor believe that the content creator is under-performing in their contract.
This thread has started with GP saying "cookie stuffing is illegal" and me replying "does this qualify as cookie stuffing?" I'm not claiming what they did is legal, I'm claiming it might be illegal, just not for "cookie stuffing". As far as I can see there is no evidence that this particular suit claims "cookie stuffing", so there is nothing in it that can add to the question whether this qualifies as "cookie stuffing" or not. Which was my only original question.
Cookie stuffing is criminal fraud because the offender is receiving commissions for sales they did not generate, thus defrauding legitimate advertisers and companies paying for the advertising.
Obtaining money by means of false or fraudulent pretenses is wire fraud.
Honey's extension stuffs a ton of different affiliate cookies via its extension for sales it did not generate. They are representing themselves as the one who made the referral, and receiving commissions for doing so, when they did not.
There is no disagreement about that. Murder is also criminal. The disagreement is whether what Honey did classifies as "cookie stuffing". (I hope there is no disagreement that it does not qualify as murder, which is a different crime.)
> Obtaining money by means of false or fraudulent pretenses is wire fraud.
This is ... not the definition of what "wire fraud" is, but let's leave it aside as it's irrelevant to this discussion.
> Honey's extension stuffs a ton of different affiliate cookies via its extension
I have not seen any evidence that Honey's extension stuffs more than one cookie for any given transaction. In my understanding "cookie stuffing" refers to a practice of stuffing a ton of cookies for one transaction, not to a practice of "stuffing" one cookie for multiple transactions. Moreover, "cookie stuffing" is not a result of "stuffing" a "cookie", just like "guinea pig" is not a "pig" and it didn't come from a place known as "Guinea". "Cookie stuffing" is a specific legal term describing a certain well-defined behavior, and it would be inaccurate to apply it to anything that involves "cookies" and "stuffing". In other words, if I put some jelly inside an Oreo, this would not qualify as "criminal fraud" known as "cookie stuffing", even though it can be said that by doing that I'm "stuffing" (putting "stuff") inside a "cookie" (Oreo). That's why I asked if you're a lawyer -- they usually understand that e.g. "wire fraud" could be done without any "wire", for instance completely wirelessly -- or that someone committing a "regular" fraud while holding a pack of wire in their hand does not commit "wire fraud".
P.S. The search for "stuffing" in the filing you attached brings no results, so I assume the lawyers also don't argue that Honey engaged in "cookie stuffing" (which is criminal).
A distinction without a difference. It's functionally the same whether you store the same referral info elsewhere and stuff the cookies "just in time" vs stuffing the cookies all at once beforehand.
Functionally the extension is inserting itself as a second impromptu persistence mechanism ("cookie jar"), allowing it to stuff its cookies at a different phase of the e-commerce flow.
Slightly altered mechanism, same effect, same crime.
Similar actions can result in different verdicts. For example, an act of firing a gun on one end and having a dead body on the other can result in a whole variety of verdicts, which includes (but not limited to) “terrorism”, “murder”, “killing”, “negligence”, or “self-defense”. You can have several functionally identical cases — e.g. same gun, same ammunition, same wounds, etc. - and still end up with a variety of verdicts, from “not guilty” to “death sentence”.
I hope you don't mind if I'll wait for the court verdict on whether it was the same intent or not. Courts usually give more substantiated verdicts with regard to intent when they review all the available evidence, which I assume you don't have (neither does the court at this stage).
From what I can find, the definition of cookie stuffing is to deceptive claim credit for sales that they did not facilitate. Its the deception that is illegal, not the act of setting cookies. As such, the amount, ton, or a few, does not change the definition. If they are claiming credit for the sale then they are either doings it in good faith or in bad faith.
Which definition/source for cookie stuffing are you looking at?
> claim credit for sales that they did not facilitate
They will argue that by providing a coupon that lowered the price for the customer they did in fact facilitate the sale. IANAL but this sounds reasonable to me. Less so for the sales they did not find a coupon for (even if they argue they've tried).
The rest of your comment folds under this.
I guess we'll see how this plays out, but for what it's worth, the attached filing does not argue "cookie stuffing". (It argues other things.)
This may also go to a completely different direction of e.g. "securities fraud" -- the SEC may argue that PayPal, as a public company, has advertised their Honey service as "finding the best deals for their customers", and on the basis of that claim some of the investors chose to buy its shares. If this was a lie, the shares sale was made under false premises, and that seems like "securities fraud".
