I’ve heard A LOT of buzz about the Honey browser extension. Friends use it, coworkers use it, and everyone has said something like, “hey – I went to buy that thing and Honey saved me 10 bucks!” …on a towel, on a t-shirt, on a tube of toothpaste, and on and on. So, why wouldn’t I want to use it? I buy those things. I should install it. But … it’s been at least a year, and I haven’t done it.
Some of the reason why is a personal tidiness issue. I try to keep my digital world clean and free of extraneous dramatic alerts, buzzes, bells and whistles. So, the idea of downloading an extension that could slow down my browser, or add a heinous bubbly icon to the toolbar, or be appalling in some other way, well, I’d rather not.
Then last night, somewhat intrusively, there was a TV Commercial for Honey. This seems crazy. Afterall, we’re talking about a browser extension! It would be like a commercial for … oh I don’t know, CCleaner, or MalwareBytes. These free tidbit applications that run on your machine shouldn’t promote themselves while you are on your couch. And so I wondered – what’s in it for Honey? What information are they collecting that’s so good? How are they making money?
That led me here, the Privacy Policy:
Fine. Typical. But this is what has become alarmingly common is here: “… during this process we share with the merchant the following information necessary to complete the transaction: your name, item(s) you are ordering, and shipping address. Once this information is received by the merchant, it may then be used and shared by such merchant pursuant to their respective privacy policy.”
It’s a domino effect. Or, perhaps more contagious. Even if I trust Honey, I’m in it to also trust every vendor Honey makes a deal with to save $10 on that towel, t-shirt or tube of toothpaste. If you’re okay with that, wonderful. Your bank account is a richer place. But at least know what you’re getting into, and decide how public you want your private information to be.