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Brave’s use of direct mailers

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Re: Brave’s use of direct mailers

#51

Post by schmichael »

I would take quite a bit of tracking in exchange for no more junk mailers like this. They seem to be missing the forest for the trees: sure tracking is problematic, but Annoying Ads, however you define them, have always been the biggest pain point. Whether it’s popups, popunders, interstitials, autoplaying, made to look like news, or killing trees to fill your mailbox: we’ve always been at war with annoying ads.

This seems like an indication Brave is actually out of touch with what consumers want: less obnoxious ads. They’re so focused on tracking they’re willing to annoy people with junk mail.

Re: Brave’s use of direct mailers

#52

Post by Barrin92 »

To me these little things are what turned me away from using the browser. Every time you install it somewhere you have to manually turn all the crypto ads off, it's the only thing that doesn't sync across devices.

These little nudges and 'growth hacks' if you will including that mailing campaign is exactly what I don't want in software that allegedly puts the user first. It doesn't seem like there is genuine innovation in Brave, they still rely on ads, and sending people physical spam in the mail or showing you 'privacy respecting' ones online obfuscated with a bunch of attention tokens doesn't really change anything.

Re: Brave’s use of direct mailers

#53

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

Why does this process involve printing addresses at all?

In Germany "you" (probably needs to be a company of some size) go to "the post office" (actual delivery probably directly to a distribution center), give them a stack of flyers, and say "one of these into each mailbox in this ZIP code, please".

The mailman then takes a stack of said flyers and starts stuffing mailboxes as he goes along his route (excluding those mailboxes that have "no ads" stickers).

This avoids the need to treat the spam as addressed mail, because you don't really care which person gets which of the (identical) flyer. This makes handling much easier and as a result, cheaper.

Re: Brave’s use of direct mailers

#55

Post by encryptluks2 »

arthurcolle wrote: post #49
encryptluks2 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't opt out. After multiple calls and complaints to USPS and speaking to the Postmaster General I was given two options. Either I could STFU and keep getting them along with my other mail, or I could opt to not have any mail delivered anymore. And... People wonder why the USPS shouldn't be a bank.

That doesn't seem right. https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/how-stop-junk-mail Which Postmaster General did you speak to again?

If you look at what posted that has nothing to do with USPS Direct Mail. I also can't tell you how bad of an idea it is to pay money and register with advertisers who are already sending you unsolicited mail.

> Which Postmaster General did you speak to again?

I filed a complaint here:

https://www.uspsoig.gov/form/file-online-complaint

And got a call back around 2015.

Re: Brave’s use of direct mailers

#57

Post by prepend »

Barrin92 wrote: post #52

To me these little things are what turned me away from using the browser. Every time you install it somewhere you have to manually turn all the crypto ads off, it's the only thing that doesn't sync across devices. These little nudges and 'growth hacks' if you will including that mailing campaign is exactly what I don't want in software that allegedly puts the user first. It doesn't seem like there is genuine innovati…

> including that mailing campaign is exactly what I don't want in software that allegedly puts the user first

I don’t get what the issue is with the mailers. The names being present or not isn’t really important as they just bought distribution lists and mailed stuff to them. Whether they print the name or not, they know them. This seems pretty normal and reasonable for a “growth hack” and still preserved privacy.

Re: Brave’s use of direct mailers

#58

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

st3fan wrote: post #27
Vorh wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I know, the database is owned by the USPS, and they can't do their job _without_ that information. You can dislike Brave for buying access to the information, or dislike USPS for selling said information. But the information is already collected by USPS so they can do their job.

Be careful with the right wording here: this USPS service is not selling any data. It is just delivering snail mail. The only data flow here is from Brave to USPS: please send our mailing to this definition of the target group. USPS does not send Brave a list of addresses or even names. Brave does not give USPS a list of addresses or names.

"our EDDM vendor" seems to imply a third party getting the addresses to print (because there's no need to keep the vendor name secret if it's the USPS), but maybe they just thought it sounds better than saying "the USPS".

Re: Brave’s use of direct mailers

#59

Post by rrdharan »

st3fan wrote: post #27
Vorh wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I know, the database is owned by the USPS, and they can't do their job _without_ that information. You can dislike Brave for buying access to the information, or dislike USPS for selling said information. But the information is already collected by USPS so they can do their job.

Be careful with the right wording here: this USPS service is not selling any data. It is just delivering snail mail. The only data flow here is from Brave to USPS: please send our mailing to this definition of the target group. USPS does not send Brave a list of addresses or even names. Brave does not give USPS a list of addresses or names.

This is exactly how Google operates yet many folks seem to define / consider that as “selling the data”.

It’s really about “leveraging access to / monetizing the data”.

The point is that by paying for EDDM, Brave is funding and supporting that financial model (targeted advertising) which many folks who use Brave want to eliminate.

So some amount of annoyance expressed by their users makes sense to me.

Re: Brave’s use of direct mailers

#60

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

Barrin92 wrote: post #52

To me these little things are what turned me away from using the browser. Every time you install it somewhere you have to manually turn all the crypto ads off, it's the only thing that doesn't sync across devices. These little nudges and 'growth hacks' if you will including that mailing campaign is exactly what I don't want in software that allegedly puts the user first. It doesn't seem like there is genuine innovati…

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