In what can be interpreted as an unveiled attempt at throwing shade at PayPal’s latest acquisition, Amazon has warned its users against allowing Honey Science Corporation’s software to run on their devices.
PayPal announced that it would buy Honey for $4bn at the end of November last year and completed the deal in the new year.
Just a few weeks after the acquisition was announced, a message started to appear on Amazon’s website for where Honey users were warned against using the online shopping coupon plug-in.
“Honey tracks your private shopping behavior, collects data like your order history and items saved, and can read or change any of your data on any website you visit,” said the message, which started to appear just before Christmas. “To keep your data private and secure, uninstall this extension immediately.”
The message was subsequently shared across multiple social media platforms by users.
“Our goal is to warn customers about browser extensions that collect personal shopping data without their knowledge or consent such as customer name, shipping and/or billing address and payment method from the checkout page,” an Amazon spokesperson said.
Honey pushed back against the allegations, saying in a statement that the company’s software “is not – and has never been – a security risk and is safe to use.”
“We only use data in ways that directly benefit Honey members – helping people save money and time – and in ways they would expect. Our commitment is clearly spelled out in our privacy and security policy.”
Honey also told Wired that it regularly engages with security firms to ensure it lives up to a high standard of cybersecurity.
It is unclear why Amazon issued the warning. Although, Jeff Bezo’s empire does not have a great history with PayPal, which dates back to the days when the FinTech company used to be part of the Amazon competitor eBay.
Amazon is still refusing to accept PayPal as a form of payment at checkout.
Moreover, Amazon also has a its own price-comparing plug-in that tracks users’ data in a similar way to Honey’s software, named Amazon Assistant.
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