this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2026
266 points (99.3% liked)

Technology

87417 readers
3890 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related news or articles.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots


founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
top 19 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] magnolia_mayhem@lemmy.world 2 points 2 hours ago

"A YouTuber"

It's been the whole ass internet for years now. They were being propped up by YouTube's broken ad system.

[–] ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world 7 points 6 hours ago (1 children)
[–] bedwyr@piefed.ca 2 points 3 hours ago

This just means Bill will have to shell out a king's ransom to prez and his legal sharks to get the case dropped.

The firesale pardon price of a million dollars in 2020 I suspect has given way to a sliding scale, and in any case requires a lot moe than a million now.

That is an interesting article though thanks for sharing I didn't know about this kind of racketeering specifically.

[–] Malyca@lemmy.zip 10 points 7 hours ago

What fucking year is it? This happened last year no?

[–] rain_enjoyer@sopuli.xyz 11 points 10 hours ago (1 children)
[–] LodeMike@lemmy.today 6 points 8 hours ago

Yeah, out of what total?

[–] WesternInfidels@feddit.online 40 points 13 hours ago

The fallout across affiliate networks came fast

MegaLag's video was posted at the end of 2024. The affiliate networks reacted in 2026. Over a year later. That doesn't seem so fast to me.

[–] markz@suppo.fi 126 points 16 hours ago (2 children)

Losing users isn't enough. Paypal needs to pay damages.

[–] Malyca@lemmy.zip 5 points 7 hours ago

Stealing from content creators, so low

[–] UsoSaito@feddit.uk 46 points 15 hours ago

Yeah it was just straight up theft with what they were doing.

[–] driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br 69 points 16 hours ago (2 children)

It should had been removed from the store. How different is that of a virus.

[–] tea@lemmy.today 18 points 14 hours ago

It isn't dead?? This ruins my day.

At the end of the day I guess it's about brand respectability (same reason some religions are cults and some aren't, IMHO)

[–] frongt@lemmy.zip 15 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

It doesn't inject its code into other programs, so it's not a virus, just general malware.

[–] driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br -1 points 4 hours ago

Changing the referral codes looks a lot like injecting code into the browser

[–] wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world 5 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

Wouldn't it be more akin to a cryptominer, since it's not doing anything with intent to harm or damage data, but the goal is to gain funds without the user's knowledge?

[–] 4am@lemmy.zip 6 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

A crypto miner uses electricity to test cryptographic solutions in order to find a specific one that “solves” a block of transactions on an blockchain. In order to do this, it runs hashing functions on your computer (usually your GPU).

It’s stealing your processing power and electricity; so no it’s not the same as a cryptocurrency miner, which is theft and fraud of a different type.

[–] wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world 2 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

Yeah, I know the details but for a widely distributed program with unwanted 'feature', it seemed to fit the bill close enough. It's not 1:1 but I don't think there's a name for what honey is, and labeling it as something like a 'Potentially Unwanted Program' is too wide of a category for it, since it does do what it says for the user, just also for its own self-interests as well...

[–] village604@adultswim.fan 11 points 14 hours ago

It's just fraud.

[–] voytrekk@sopuli.xyz 37 points 16 hours ago

Good. It needs to lose all of them with their scummy behavior.