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Brave’s use of direct mailers

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Re: Brave’s use of direct mailers

#101

Post by gruez »

Animats wrote: post #89
VanTheBrand wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it didn’t. Read the article. They sent this to entire zip codes. It’s not targeted at users. If you are a user and you also got it, that’s a coincidence. All your neighbors in the same zip code also got it whether they are users or not,

Then why does their mailing piece say "New Brave User"? Their spin control says they sent it to entire zip codes. Is there independent confirmation of that?

> Then why does their mailing piece say "New Brave User"?

You're reading too much into this. If you look at the other elements of the ad, it's clear that the purpose of the ad is to get you to install brave, which makes you a "new brave user".

Re: Brave’s use of direct mailers

#102

Post by gruez »

prepend wrote: post #57
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.

>The names being present or not isn’t really important as they just bought distribution lists and mailed stuff to them

Based on my understanding they didn't even buy distribution lists. They just told USPS to deliver their ad to every house in a given zip code.

Re: Brave’s use of direct mailers

#103

Post by gruez »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #53

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 thos…

You're right, you don't need addresses to deliver ads to every household. However, addressed mail probably gets better engagement than unaddressed mail, so USPS/EDDM vendors allow you to insert the name/address of the recipient, based on whatever is in their database. Brave didn't intend for this option to be enabled, but due to some oversight it was enabled, hence why the ads had addresses on them.

Re: Brave’s use of direct mailers

#105

Post by gruez »

longrod wrote: post #13

This little stunt by Brave was clearly not the right move. Marketing is a necessity but if you sacrifice one of the core principals of your product i.e. privacy & security, what's the point? The scenario is something like this: Random person: recieves a physical mail right after installing Brave. Brave: we are so so private and don't ever sell or use your data. Random person: how did you get my address then right aft…

>Random person: recieves a physical mail right after installing Brave.

>Brave: we are so so private and don't ever sell or use your data.

>Random person: how did you get my address then right after I literally installed Brave?

Can't you make the argument for any sort of ad? eg.

>Random person: sees a static banner ad[1] right after installing Brave.

>Brave: we are so so private and don't ever sell or use your data.

>Random person: how did you know to show me a brave ad right after I literally installed Brave?

Are you basically arguing that brave shouldn't advertise at all?

[1] static in the sense it's placed there by the publisher for all visitors, rather than through some sort of ad network

Re: Brave’s use of direct mailers

#106

Post by gruez »

password4321 wrote: post #11

I like Brave. But they always seem to be "asking forgiveness rather than permission".

Given that EDDM is an official offering from USPS, and that USPS is a government agency, it's reasonable to conclude that this activity is state sanctioned. In that case what permission do they need to ask for?

Re: Brave’s use of direct mailers

#108

Post by gruez »

_9hey wrote: post #74

What I don’t understand is how their vendor even got the names of the recipients. That is the violation of privacy, the mailed letters are only the symptom of a poorly designed system.

It seems conceivable that the vendor doesn't have the address/name list, but USPS.

Re: Brave’s use of direct mailers

#109

Post by notahacker »

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #60
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…

Quoted post unavailable.

The tracking beacons the mailshot was sent to tell people they should be worried about don't even need throwing in the trash...

Brave is using a USPS commercial mailshot service which openly encourages the use of personally identifiable information to target unsolicited marketing (name, age, income(!) and other demographic info) to promote the idea it respects privacy and opposes collecting data to run ad campaigns for third parties. That's not a great look, and explaining that actually this shouldn't have been a problem because (like the customers of Facebook, Google and most display ad networks) the service they're paying keeps the targeting data to itself is probably even worse.

Re: Brave’s use of direct mailers

#110

Post by longrod »

gruez wrote: post #105
longrod wrote: post #13

This little stunt by Brave was clearly not the right move. Marketing is a necessity but if you sacrifice one of the core principals of your product i.e. privacy & security, what's the point? The scenario is something like this: Random person: recieves a physical mail right after installing Brave. Brave: we are so so private and don't ever sell or use your data. Random person: how did you get my address then right aft…

>Random person: recieves a physical mail right after installing Brave. >Brave: we are so so private and don't ever sell or use your data. >Random person: how did you get my address then right after I literally installed Brave? Can't you make the argument for any sort of ad? eg. >Random person: sees a static banner ad[1] right after installing Brave. >Brave: we are so so private and don't ever sell or use your data. >…

This is a very interesting situation for privacy respecting products.

Say you want to advertise to your potential audience, what do you do? You have very few privacy respecting methods.

1. You go with passive advertising like billboards, TV ads, blog ads etc. Not particularly effective since you can't do it across the world.

2. You go with something like Google with a huge ad network. But if you go with Google...you are tapping into and making use of personal data of your very own privacy respecting people. In a way, you are feeding the beast.

Which method should such a product go with? Which method would conform with their privacy respecting model best? Which would bring in a lot of users?

Not all ads are bad. Not all ad networks are bad. Some, very few, do it ethically. I think Brave itself is one of those. But these networks are very, very small compared to Google.

At all time the temptation is there to go with targeted ads because it's the most effective & affordable way to get potential users. The moment you do, are you still privacy respecting?

Edit: as to your question about banner ads. It depends. If you are using Google's banner ads they aren't static by any means. Google targets and rotates based on their huge database of user data. But if you just put a banner ad somewhere on a blog etc, that comes under the category of passive/non-targeted marketing.

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