Part 5/9:
The strategies used by platforms like Honey complicate this landscape further. Honey leverages technical hacks to take credit for sales by overriding existing affiliate cookies. Typically, when a consumer clicks on an affiliate link, that action triggers a cookie that tracks the referral for a certain period. However, Honey's extension disrupts this process by injecting its own cookie—effectively hijacking credits that should go to legitimate referrers.
This practice raises ethical questions around the integrity of affiliate marketing and how these extensions operate. Autonomously applying affiliate codes undermines the trust and transparency that legitimate creators uphold. It also skirts the curated relationship between consumers and the creators they follow.