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