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Brave launches private search ads

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Re: Brave launches private search ads

#201

Post by soundnote »

iLoveOncall wrote: post #7

I've rarely seen a product become so bad so quickly. Brave started out with great promises and has consistently under-delivered since.

Huh? So, thoroughly degoogling Chromium, offering standalone e2ee sync services, a standalone search engine, near uBO grade content blocking on mobile, better YouTube experience on mobile, actually user controllable takes on things like a newtab newsfeed, private video calls etc. is bad? Native vertical tabs (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33135489) is bad?

They're doing craptons.

Re: Brave launches private search ads

#202

Post by soundnote »

GaryNumanVevo wrote: post #115

Is anyone surprised? Brave was trying to push their own ad network years ago with the BAT (Brave Attention Token) to "pay" websites for eyes on their page. And guess how they paid for it? By running their own ads over native web content. Edit: Not sure why people are downvoting this. Brave announced the BAT in 2017 and they outlined their plans for an alternative ad network then. https://twitter.com/AttentionToken/st…

Probably because Brave doesn't run their own ads over native web content. Brave Rewards ads are opt-in things delivered as native OS toaster popups and unrelated to your browsing activity.

Re: Brave launches private search ads

#203

Post by _dan »

therealmarv wrote: post #158
satvikpendem wrote: post #74

After all the Brave controversies [0] I'm not sure why anyone uses Brave anymore. They took creators' money while ostensibly "collecting" it for them, and they inserted their own affiliate links when you visited certain sites. It's just shady behavior all around. I mean, when you have your own "Controversies" section on Wikipedia, you know there's something wrong. Especially with Manifest v3 looming which would kill…

- Brave blocks you more against Fingerprinting than Firefox with uBlock. https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/ - Brave uses Chromium and uses better isolation and sandbox than Firefox. Especially on Android. - Brave has Adblock built-in natively. It's written in Rust, so Manifest v3 will not affect it. https://github.com/brave/adblock-rust - Brave is profitable on itself and not dependent on search engines money like Fire…

To each their own, bit this is what it boils down to for me: I trust Mozilla's intentions more than I trust Brave's.

There's no telling when Brave are going to decide it's time to monetize and start compromising themselves and their users.

Re: Brave launches private search ads

#204

Post by danbruc »

squeaky-clean wrote: post #145
travisgriggs wrote: post #105

This statement (second paragraph) > Ads are a key part of search engines, helping to facilitate the free and open exchange of information on the Web, and to connect users to helpful products and services related to their search terms. Is just non sequitur for me. It's said in such a smooth way, in such a gaslight-ish way, that your tempted to just accept it. But it actually makes no sense to me. I get what ads are ke…

> If I sat down with a troubled couple who was having a hard time communicating, I wouldn't periodically interrupt and say "let's pause a moment for an ad. I think that's going to really open up a better and more free exchange between the both of you." Couples counseling isn't free, maybe with ads they could be. I mean obviously not, but only because a professional counselor can only see about 8 couples per day while…

Instead of funding our service with your own money, let some big companies fund it in exchange for your attention.

The big companies are not magically getting their money out of thin air, you are still paying with your money, just indirectly through the share of the ad budget included in the price of everything you buy. Some of the money gets lost on the way to pay the marketing people, some of the money goes to the web sites. But it is not enough that they now have your money, no, you also have to look at the stuff the marketing people made with your money in order to see the content you payed for. And this is still not enough, they also want every last bit of information about you, so that they can annoy you in a more targeted way. And last but not least, there are no real incentives that the ads represent the product objectively but there are incentives to overpromise and manipulate you.

Re: Brave launches private search ads

#205

Post by BrendanEich »

travisgriggs wrote: post #105

This statement (second paragraph) > Ads are a key part of search engines, helping to facilitate the free and open exchange of information on the Web, and to connect users to helpful products and services related to their search terms. Is just non sequitur for me. It's said in such a smooth way, in such a gaslight-ish way, that your tempted to just accept it. But it actually makes no sense to me. I get what ads are ke…

Thanks, you have a point. This sentence is trying to get across two separate ideas without doing the work, and its breezy style doesn't help.

1. Ad-free premium search is already an option with Brave Search, and the ads in the free leg we just launched are privacy-preserving, but none of this proves the "free and open exchange" claim. The "free" part was intended to mean no-payment-required, because many can't afford and some find ads useful. The "open" is thorny and should have been separated: all engines have biases even if algorithmic, from the Web they index if not how they weigh and measure inputs to their indexing.

2. Some folks do find ads useful (I do, on Google especially as its organic results have declined in quality since the old days, but even in the old days). These users will probably prefer the free leg on this basis, and that's what the last clause of this overlong sentence was trying to get across.

We will do better in future posts. I hope the privacy-preserving nature of search ads is clear too -- if not, please reply and I'll take back your feedback there too.

Re: Brave launches private search ads

#206

Post by yucky »

uoaei wrote: post #162
yucky wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But I don't see how they increase the free and open exchange of information on the web. I think I can help explain. Almost all search engine users (~95%+) only scan the first 10-20 results on a query, and those results are dominated by sites that have the budget to spend on SEO. Buying ads gives other voices a chance to break through. Depending on the niche it can be far more expensive to be on the first page of se…

Ads give other voices with money to spend a chance to break through. This is very far from anything relevant either to "free" or "open" web interactions.

If you re-read my post I think it will make more sense. Ranking naturally (SEO) often costs FAR more, so running even a small paid campaign can help those with smaller pockets strategically focus their efforts and is often the only option they realistically have.

Re: Brave launches private search ads

#207

Post by awillen »

SebastianKra wrote: post #169
squeaky-clean wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I sat down with a troubled couple who was having a hard time communicating, I wouldn't periodically interrupt and say "let's pause a moment for an ad. I think that's going to really open up a better and more free exchange between the both of you." Couples counseling isn't free, maybe with ads they could be. I mean obviously not, but only because a professional counselor can only see about 8 couples per day while…

I hate that ads are now seen as a necessary evil for funding free access to services. The money still comes from you, just through the purchase of products. What's worse, if you pay for YouTube Premium or Kagi, you're effectively paying for your content twice. No wonder, poorer people can't afford that. I guess you could frame it like this: "Company are overcharging us by insane amounts anyways, so at least some of t…

You're not forced to buy any products, though. And in this case they specifically allow you to pay $3/month and not have ads. I'd wager virtually no one will take that option, though, since folks tend to be very vocally opposed to ads until it's time to pay instead.

Re: Brave launches private search ads

#208

Post by charcircuit »

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #175
travisgriggs wrote: post #105

This statement (second paragraph) > Ads are a key part of search engines, helping to facilitate the free and open exchange of information on the Web, and to connect users to helpful products and services related to their search terms. Is just non sequitur for me. It's said in such a smooth way, in such a gaslight-ish way, that your tempted to just accept it. But it actually makes no sense to me. I get what ads are ke…

"An index (yellow pages) of what's available would help me search for a product." This is what "tech" companies are seeking to prevent. If the user has no idea of what's available, then the "tech" company can "suggest" its advertisers' products and services. "Recommendations" are supposed to be technologically indistinguishable from "search". Gaslighting indeed. But don't believe me. Get it from the horse's mouth. Re…

>Google wants the US Supreme Court to believe that recommendations systems and search engines are the same thing

They literally are the same. Recommendation systems just search using an embedding of a under instead of an embedding of a textual query.

Re: Brave launches private search ads

#209

Post by nroach »

BrendanEich wrote: post #205
travisgriggs wrote: post #105

This statement (second paragraph) > Ads are a key part of search engines, helping to facilitate the free and open exchange of information on the Web, and to connect users to helpful products and services related to their search terms. Is just non sequitur for me. It's said in such a smooth way, in such a gaslight-ish way, that your tempted to just accept it. But it actually makes no sense to me. I get what ads are ke…

Thanks, you have a point. This sentence is trying to get across two separate ideas without doing the work, and its breezy style doesn't help. 1. Ad-free premium search is already an option with Brave Search, and the ads in the free leg we just launched are privacy-preserving, but none of this proves the "free and open exchange" claim. The "free" part was intended to mean no-payment-required, because many can't afford…

> Ad-free premium search is already an option with Brave Search

Is the premium search ad-free in the sense that no user-derived data is utilized or extractable for advertising purposes?

Or is it ad free in the sense that no ads are displayed to premium tier users, but user data can still be an input for ad measurement, conversion, and modeling?

Re: Brave launches private search ads

#210

Post by hunterb123 »

asadotzler wrote: post #198
hunterb123 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No they don't. They don't replace ads, that's a lie, stop repeating it here please. The Brave rewards are system OS text notifications that you can OPT IN to. In no way do they replace banner ads on websites.

Replacement doesn't imply a reuse of a specific location. Taking an ad out your browser and placing a different ad on your desktop is still replacement. Do you really not understand that advertising isn't about space in physical world, but about space in your mind? What brave does is absolutely replacement. They replace a bit of light that was emanating from one part of your device's screen to invade your attention t…

Brave has a built in adblocker for the user that is on by default.

Brave also has a rewards program the user can opt-in to get scheduled text notifications on their system.

I could see your point somewhat if their rewards system was opt-out or tied to whether the adblocker was on, but it's not.

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