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Funding Choices – Google’s new tool for GDPR compliance and content monetization

fundingchoices.google.com

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Re: Funding Choices – Google’s new tool for GDPR compliance and content monetization

#161

Post by eleniS2 »

ThePhysicist wrote: post #8

I'm still surprised no one has yet figured out a way to store sensitive data about personal interests and preferences on the client-side and let the client itself pull appropriate ads for the user to see. The quality of such a system should be comparable or better to server-side technologies with the right amount of tuning, and much less privacy-invading than existing approaches. Personally I'd love to support more w…

We are also building such a product. The core idea is: Your browser knows you best. We leverage this to display offers tailored to your browsing behavior that include a valuable user benefit without any of the information ever leaving your browser. You can read more of how we do this in https://myoffrz.com/en/fuer-nutzer/. Plus the code is open sourced here: https://github.com/cliqz-oss/browser-core/tree/master/module.... The product name is MyOffrz and is integrated in the Cliqz Browser/Extension as "Cliqz Offers" and in the Ghostery extension as "Ghostery Rewards Beta" for German users.

Re: Funding Choices – Google’s new tool for GDPR compliance and content monetization

#162

Post by ficklepickle »

BrendanEich wrote: post #156
tomp wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How will you prevent the user from "opting in" but then not displaying the tabs? E.g. an extension could render white boxes in another (mostly transparent) window above the browser, thus acting like an ad-blocker.

Brave's agent is C++ built into the browser, it prevails over extensions (which we will also guard against at the point of installation). It is a mistake to think of the BAT ecosystem fraud threat (which exists, for sure) as the same as the threat with remote scripts for ad view or click attribution and confirmation as practiced by ad-tech today. Third party scripts run without any integrity guarantees, so get fooled…

Thanks for the detailed post. It's awesome that you folks are trying to fix the funding model of the web .

Any chance of putting brave on f-droid? Its the only app on my phone that I manually download/update. Totally worth it though :)

Re: Funding Choices – Google’s new tool for GDPR compliance and content monetization

#163

Post by BrendanEich »

user812 wrote: post #135
BrendanEich wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brave, with the Basic Attention Token (BAT), is building exactly the client-side anonymous contribution + ad-matching system you describe. We will take BAT to other apps after proving the model in Brave. BAT in Brave is opt-in -- each user consents before anything local happens with data or zero-knowledge/blind-token attestations -- and users can get _gratis_ BAT grants right now using the stable desktop browser (thi…

I'm a big fan of that idea. Imho the beauty of your BAT system (the way it is envisioned) is it's independency from the current model of monetizing the web, which is ads, gradually evolving towards direct transmission between publisher and consumer. Ads in the way they work on the web are just a very inefficient system of transferring this value, and they don't serve the original function of marketing anymore. It tur…

Thanks for the comment.

On your last paragraph, we can't standardize the BAT ecosystem until it is proven, and as it consists of more than the ERC20 token -- specifically it includes endpoint software currently developing in Brave, plus an anonymous accounting service alongside the Ethereum blockchain -- it won't be proven via the existence of the token alone.

On a future blockchain with anonymity, high throughput, and low fees (a trilemma?), the BAT ecosystem could be fully decentralized. That blockchain does not exist yet.

So our roadmap divides and conquers (the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo phases), and we will expand beyond one browser when the system is ready, some time next year in my best guess. In particular (as noted in my other comments here), we need a high-integrity and fraud-resistant open source SDK.

Note that the BAT has diffused since inception to over 69,100 holding Ethereum accounts (https://etherscan.io/token/tokenholderchart/0x0d8775f6484306... -- you can see our User Growth Pool and Bittrex's liquidity pool as the top two accounts). The remaining roadmap work items are about token mechanics not token ownership.

Re: Funding Choices – Google’s new tool for GDPR compliance and content monetization

#164

Post by cavneb »

I started up CodeFund last year in an effort to help fund open source projects and developers. This year, we opened up the source code (https://GitHub.com/gitcoinco/codefund) and provide ethical advertising. We don’t do any tracking, profiling, cookie setting, remarketing, etc. and our ads are chosen by the audience that the website caters to. We also give back up to 70% of all gross ad revenue back to the publishers. https://CodeFund.io

Re: Funding Choices – Google’s new tool for GDPR compliance and content monetization

#165

Post by BrendanEich »

ficklepickle wrote: post #162
BrendanEich wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brave's agent is C++ built into the browser, it prevails over extensions (which we will also guard against at the point of installation). It is a mistake to think of the BAT ecosystem fraud threat (which exists, for sure) as the same as the threat with remote scripts for ad view or click attribution and confirmation as practiced by ad-tech today. Third party scripts run without any integrity guarantees, so get fooled…

Thanks for the detailed post. It's awesome that you folks are trying to fix the funding model of the web . Any chance of putting brave on f-droid? Its the only app on my phone that I manually download/update. Totally worth it though :)

It is on the Android team’s todo list. If you want to help please dm me on Twitter. Thanks.

Re: Funding Choices – Google’s new tool for GDPR compliance and content monetization

#166

Post by UpshotKnothole »

BrendanEich wrote: post #153
UpshotKnothole wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that the individual take from this would be miniscule, what’s the advantage over an ad blocker? This sounds like a lot of faux-currency nonsense for little reward (client side at least) to fix a problem that already has a working solution. Plus, the existing solution blocks all ads, and tracking scripts, which is a huge win.

The individual take has yet to be demonstrated, but do some math. $80B gross USD (at least; the IAB said $88B) spent on digital in US last year, say across 250M people (with Dr. Augustine Fou of NYU estimating fraud took $16.2B, lots of bots too). That is $320 gross ARPU if spread evenly -- which it is not. (Note we are worldwide and build for Europe and Asia too, not just at the US.) Many of Brave's users at this ea…

People already pay more than that to avoid ads on things like YouTube, Hulu, and other services. Given that people often spend quite a bit of time online, I wouldn’t be shocked if they’d be willing to not pay, but just “miss out” on a fraction of what they’d actively pay to avoid ads... to avoid ads. That of course is all before they consider that the system is designed to avoid them ever cashing out.

I’m guessing the population aware of and interested in ad blocking and the population willing to half ass it in Brave is very slim indeed. I suspect that a majority who have become motivated to use an ad blocker and especially a script blocker have no patience left for any incarnation of advertising, regardless of fractional “rewards” on offer.

Re: Funding Choices – Google’s new tool for GDPR compliance and content monetization

#167

Post by fapjacks »

ReverseCold wrote: post #86
fapjacks wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You jest, but having worked in the ad tech industry, I can say this is actually a completely viable means of tracking people. This is why you don't load uBlock Origin into your Tor Browser or use a custom User-Agent string while using your VPN. Everything you do that is different than what everyone else does (i.e. the default) is a means of identifying you. And if I could do it at that startup, certainly Google can d…

Changing your user agent is also probably a bad idea. There are other ways to detect browser, so you're pretty unique of you're using Firefox on MacOS with a Chrome for Windows user agent.

Yes, don't use any custom extensions in TB or any custom user-agent string or otherwise deviate from the default.

Re: Funding Choices – Google’s new tool for GDPR compliance and content monetization

#168

Post by BrendanEich »

UpshotKnothole wrote: post #166
BrendanEich wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The individual take has yet to be demonstrated, but do some math. $80B gross USD (at least; the IAB said $88B) spent on digital in US last year, say across 250M people (with Dr. Augustine Fou of NYU estimating fraud took $16.2B, lots of bots too). That is $320 gross ARPU if spread evenly -- which it is not. (Note we are worldwide and build for Europe and Asia too, not just at the US.) Many of Brave's users at this ea…

People already pay more than that to avoid ads on things like YouTube, Hulu, and other services. Given that people often spend quite a bit of time online, I wouldn’t be shocked if they’d be willing to not pay, but just “miss out” on a fraction of what they’d actively pay to avoid ads... to avoid ads. That of course is all before they consider that the system is designed to avoid them ever cashing out. I’m guessing th…

We full ass, never half ass :-P. Also, nice try suggesting we get only a subset of users who care about ad blocking -- our main win vs. Chrome is speed, 2-8x faster on top news/media sites on mobile, and correlated lower data and battery costs.

Your negativity aside, the test has not been run to completion where it matters, in the market. I keep noping out of YouTube Red or TV or whatever it's called, because Brave blocks all ads there and (with forthcoming work to enable playback controls in various settings including cars) easily beats the pretty-terrible YouTube mobile app.

The idea of charging for Brave that you lead with occurred to us, but browsers and even non-corrupt ad blockers are free, so it looks like a high hill to climb. Perhaps with the slicker video controls and integration work, but anyway, glad we got past the assertion about "miniscule" revenue to users. In my experience, paying users beats charging them :-D.

Re: Funding Choices – Google’s new tool for GDPR compliance and content monetization

#169

Post by yuhong »

Rjevski wrote: post #2

I would not trust any opt-out offered by a company who's bottom line is directly dependent on violating people's privacy. The only opt-out that can be trusted is one that does send any network requests to the stalking company until consent is given. That's the same reason why you wouldn't want to ask an alcoholic to guard a warehouse full of vodka at night, as you'd probably find a few empty bottles the next day. Sam…

I actually mentioned "opt-out" links in spam in the essay.

Re: Funding Choices – Google’s new tool for GDPR compliance and content monetization

#170

Post by Hnrobert42 »

themacguffinman wrote: post #146
Hnrobert42 wrote: post #26

I would be willing to load ads if I didnt have to see them. I’m happy. Content provider gets ad shown so they are happy. Advertiser doesn’t get anything, but I don’t care.

...the content provider is only happy that the ad is shown because advertisers pay them for it. Advertisers aren't going to pay content providers if people loaded ads without seeing them.

How would they know?
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