News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on US Man Given Prison Sentence for Bot-Farming Music Streams. Parent comment

Re:US Man Given Prison Sentence for Bot-Farming Music Streams by Dylan16807 on Thursday October 08, 2026 @04:08PM (#50011378)
The crime is fraud, and if he was using the service as offered he wouldn't have thousands of accounts pretending to be different people.

Are any major corporations doing something similar to this, play-botting to get other people's royalty money?

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:US Man Given Prison Sentence for Bot-Farming Music Streams by paulryanrogers on Thursday October 08, 2026 @05:22PM (#50012486)
Wasn't Brave browser caught replacing ads with its own? And the Honey extension replacing / injecting referral codes?
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:US Man Given Prison Sentence for Bot-Farming Music Streams by whstl on Thursday October 08, 2026 @05:27PM (#50012555)
> And the Honey extension replacing / injecting referral codes?

Fraud in larger scale and using other people's computers.

Was it ever prosecuted with the same vigour?

It's a corporation so I'm gonna bet no.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:US Man Given Prison Sentence for Bot-Farming Music Streams by JumpCrisscross on Friday October 09, 2026 @01:33AM (#50016381)
> Was it ever prosecuted with the same vigour?

A class-action lawsuit is "still being fought at the pleading stage" [1]. The way this often goes is prosecutors will watch the discovery in that case to decide if anyone committed a crime.

[1] https://openclassactions.com/lawsuits/paypal-honey-affiliate...

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:US Man Given Prison Sentence for Bot-Farming Music Streams by whstl on Friday October 09, 2026 @05:41AM (#50018230)
So there was no criminal prosecution, just a lawsuit.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:US Man Given Prison Sentence for Bot-Farming Music Streams by JumpCrisscross on Friday October 09, 2026 @04:09PM (#50025985)
> way this often goes is prosecutors will watch the discovery

>> there was no criminal prosecution, just a lawsuit

Like, come on. (This reminds me of the folks on HN confidently concluding Elizabeth Holmes wouldn’t see the inside of a jail all the way through sentencing.)

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:US Man Given Prison Sentence for Bot-Farming Music Streams by loeg on Thursday October 08, 2026 @07:20PM (#50013807)
I can't speak to the Brave thing, but the Honey thing is another example of fraud, yes.
[ Parent | on HN ]