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Brave taking cryptocurrency donations “for me” without my consent

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Re: Brave taking cryptocurrency donations “for me” without my consent

#251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Firefox absolutely sucks on Android. Have you tried it lately? I agree that it used to, but it has improved vastly. It's my daily driver now.

I did, tried it for a week, honestly the scrolling still feels horrible when compared to Chrome.

Agreed that scrolling is still janky, but the syncing of prefs (especially add-ons) is well worth it, imo.

Heck, even just the one add-on that lets you sleep your phone while a YouTube video continues playing is well worth using Firefox. Such a basic functionality isn't enough reason to get YouTube Red.

And then, you have add-ons like ublock origin that give you the Brave-like functionality without all this brouhaha.

Re: Brave taking cryptocurrency donations “for me” without my consent

#252

Edit: title was changed, I am not Tom Scott I am not too familiar with how Brave and BAT (Brave Attention Token), so please chime in. Here's how Brave describes the BAT YouTube donations system: https://basicattentiontoken.org/brave-expands-basic-attentio... From my understanding, users of the Brave Browser select which YouTubers to donate to, but they don't know whether the channels have opted in to receive donation…

I work at Brave. Tips to un-verified publishers sit in escrow for the creator to claim. IANAL but GDPR refers to personal data collected from users. The only "Youtuber data" being "used" here is publicly gettable data from the Youtuber's channel.

Every escrow I've ever come across had the agreement of both parties. This one does not.

Re: Brave taking cryptocurrency donations “for me” without my consent

#253
post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tom Scott did not explicitly sign up for this service. Brave is not even telling users that Tom Scott is not signed up, and Brave has no automated way of contacting him to let him know that someone donated. The system is engineered to move the money towards Brave, with neither the benefactor nor the beneficiary being aware of that. How is that ethical?

I don't want to muddle into the legal discussion, but I would like to add that I've been a happy Brave user for several months and have never felt any misunderstanding about where my tips are going. It is very clear to me who is a -verified- publisher and who isn't one. It was also made clear to me that unverified publishers were getting their tips stored in escrow as a carrot to entice them to enroll. Since I obviou…

Can you show screenshots of that? What do the prompts from https://twitter.com/ummjackson/status/1076221401353207808 look like for a verified publisher?

Re: Brave taking cryptocurrency donations “for me” without my consent

#257
post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US legal system there are both criminal and civil forms of fraud. A plaintiff can sue for fraud in civil court, seeking damages or specific performance.

Really? In Europe, if an offense has both civil and criminal forms, criminal courts are authorised for both forms of said offense, difference lying in procedure instead.

Yes really. I doubt that applies to all countries in Europe. The UK legal system is similar to the American one.

US criminal courts can order defendants convicted of fraud to pay restitution to their victims.

Re: Brave taking cryptocurrency donations “for me” without my consent

#258
Hey guys I'm collecting donations for the Brave Browser to implement the BAT scheme responsibly. We've discovered some issues with it and think it needs overhauling. Please donate to

Standard Chartered Bank, Frankfurt, Germany; SWIFT/BIC Code: SCBLDEFX

IBAN: DE67512305000500136802

Beneficiary Name: SVB-Mozilla Foundation

You're helping a great project that way! (Note: You might not actually be donating to the Brave Browser directly and some of the funds may go to other projects.)

Re: Brave taking cryptocurrency donations “for me” without my consent

#259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work at Brave on the business team. This is helpful feedback. Brave is a startup with a small team earnestly building a new thing that combines a browser with a tipping system, with creator tools, with ad blocking... it's ambitious! As it's a new thing, describing it can be messy sometimes. We're always working to make our language better and clearer though. Thank you for letting us know it fell short for you. To a…

the statements from Brave people on this thread seem reasonable ; many inflammatory comments here do not seem reasonable

I disagree completely. So far, both here and on Twitter, the core complaint, that donations are solicited in the name of people who have no relationship with Brave, and from whom Brave has no consent, has been completely ignored.

The fact is the original complainant, Tom Scott, and many others, find that practice abhorrent, and the response so far has been deflection or vague promises that the Brave team want to help content creators, whether they want the "help" or not.

Re: Brave taking cryptocurrency donations “for me” without my consent

#260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am on the business team at Brave. We want people to collect and get paid. It's a huge part of why we come in to work every day, to work on stuff that helps creators get paid. I'm sure there's UI/UX stuff in Patreon that could be better. That doesn't mean they don't want creators to get paid. It just means there's room for improvement.

If you're sincere, then for starters, how about removing the $100 threshold immediately, and notifying all people who have had donations made to them, so that they can come and claim the money?

You really want to get spammed with "claim your 5ct in donations for signing up on our website!" every day?
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