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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

#141

Post by _0ffh »

dessant wrote: post #82
egypturnash wrote: post #42

I just dug up info on how Brave’s contributions thing works and it feels like such a mess. According to https://brave.com/publishers/ - once you have accumulated $100 in contributions they email “the webmaster at your site” and the owner of your domain according to the WHOIS. I assume this is “webmaster@domain.name”, which I sure don’t have set up on my personal site. - you have to “check your balance frequently and…

My impression is that Brave's current model actively hurts small creators that would otherwise get some of that money sooner on the donation services they have signed up for, without waiting for Brave's $100 withdrawal threshold to be reached, if it ever does. I'd be surprised if this will be deemed legal, once more people will find out that there is a company collecting donations in their name and without their cons…

>I'd be surprised if this will be deemed legal

I'm surprised how anyone could think this was a good idea, or even legal. What wouldn't surprise me is an incoming class action.

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

#142

Post by dkhenry »

They are not taking cryptocurrency "donations" they are taking user contributions. If the creator doesn't want them then I, as a user, have agreed that they go into the "User Growth Pool". In my opinion I don't really care if the creator has signed up or not, as a consumer I have decided I would rather pay for content using Brave's system rather then being forced to use the incrediably intrusive and malicious tracking based ad system of the traditional web ecosystem. If a creator doesn't like it they can block me from watching their content. I will not subject myself to their abuse of my data.

The real issue here is that consumers are using the same tactics creators have used since the first ads appeared on the internet, and now the content creators are upset. If they don't like the new rules then block me, some sites have already done that with Ad Blockers and paywalls.

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

#143

Post by [deleted] »

mattferderer wrote: post #120
egypturnash wrote: post #42

I just dug up info on how Brave’s contributions thing works and it feels like such a mess. According to https://brave.com/publishers/ - once you have accumulated $100 in contributions they email “the webmaster at your site” and the owner of your domain according to the WHOIS. I assume this is “webmaster@domain.name”, which I sure don’t have set up on my personal site. - you have to “check your balance frequently and…

It's been a while since I started using Brave but I felt they were pretty up front with how the payments worked. I do understand the frustration though of those who don't see this. Brave could warn visitors donating when the content owner hasn't set up Brave Payments. Brave could refund said money back to the visitor if it goes unclaimed after a while. Just random ideas from someone who actually likes their attempt.

[deleted]

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

#144

Post by [deleted] »

brandnewlow wrote: post #99
plusCubed wrote: post #2

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.

[deleted]

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

#145

Post by [deleted] »

SheinhardtWigCo wrote: post #31

Brave is a web browser that takes your money and claims to pay out to your favorite websites and content creators, but in most cases actually pays into a "user growth pool" that funds pyramid-shaped marketing (paying users to use the browser) and referral programs for partner content creators. How is that not fraud?

[deleted]

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

#146

Post by lalaithion »

pyb wrote: post #124
jonny_eh wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This must be against some kind of law, I'm not sure which though.

Not at lawyer, but using a third party's persona to collect money (for whatever purpose) sounds like a blatant breach of personality rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_rights

At the very least it should be a violation of trademark law.

(1) Any person who, on or in connection with any goods or services, or any container for goods, uses in commerce any word, term, name, symbol, or device, or any combination thereof, or any false designation of origin, false or misleading description of fact, or false or misleading representation of fact, which—

(A) is likely to cause confusion, or to cause mistake, or to deceive as to the affiliation, connection, or association of such person with another person, or as to the origin, sponsorship, or approval of his or her goods, services, or commercial activities by another person, or (B) in commercial advertising or promotion, misrepresents the nature, characteristics, qualities, or geographic origin of his or her or another person’s goods, services, or commercial activities,

shall be liable in a civil action by any person who believes that he or she is or is likely to be damaged by such act.

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

#147

Post by pushcx »

brandnewlow wrote: post #89
egypturnash wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I suspect this is part of their overall revenue model.

Honest question: Why do you suspect that? (I work at Brave. We're all very, very nerdy here. It'd be helpful to understand why a fellow nerd suspects we're up to no good.)

https://twitter.com/ummjackson/status/1076221401353207808

Your UI really looks like Tom Scott has signed up to receive donations through you, not like you've scraped his photo and name off twitter and written a fundraising plea with zero mention that he's never heard of you and that you won't even try to contact him until $100 accumulates and then only half-assedly.

For most of us this is our first exposure to your model and UI, so that has set a very negative expectation. This looks like a scam and I'm now trying to figure out how to know if you've scammed any of my users without doing anything like installing Brave or signing up because your metrics probably count that as success rather than suspicion.

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

#148

Post by thekyle »

jonny_eh wrote: post #58
callinyouin wrote: post #43

Brendan Eich's defense of this scheme [0] seems a bit weak to me. Do you really think the solution is to make creators opt out? What in the world makes you think it's okay to represent people who have not asked for your assistance and take donations on their behalf? Why is it their responsibility to ask you nicely not to use their name to solicit donations? [0] https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/10761873167486156…

This must be against some kind of law, I'm not sure which though.

Maybe, a few years back I had the idea to create a service identical to what Brave offers today (except based on the traditional banking system, not cryptocurrency) however I stopped after reviewing the money transmitter laws in the United States and determining that they were not compatible with this business model.

It's possible that Brave has found some sort of loophole that allows them to do this, but I haven't verified that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_transmitter

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

#149

Post by CryptoPunk »

smsm42 wrote: post #118

Is there actual money involved? I have 60 BAT in my Brave account, and I didn't pay a dime to anybody. Yet, looks like I can donate them. Not sure I understand how the system works - am I supposed to eventually buy BAT tokens if I want to donate them?

I think you earn BAT for browing while ads are turned on.

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

#150

Post by rchaud »

hackcasual wrote: post #24
davidgerard wrote: post #7

Brendan Eich answers on Twitter: https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1076187316748615680 basically he plans to keep it working the way it works now, "opt out" and all - he's confident this is a completely legal way to work

> I realize some don’t like it, agree we should respect their wishes. But the ability to paypal or western union or otherwise send to people without their consent exists and is not illegal or unethical. Nominative fair use of public data also legal. There's a huge difference between sending someone money without their prior permission and creating a system to solicit money to send to someone without their prior permi…

What kind of inane rationale is that? Western Union asks the sender to provide detailed address and contact information, and has technology available to send a text to the recipient letting them know that they can pick up their money at a WU location.

Since Tom Scott didn't sign up, how would Brave know to contact him? Some default webmaster@example.com email that may or may not even be registered?

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