Earlier quoted context omitted.
> How is that not fraud? The answer appears to be "technically", and "sue if you think you're big enough".
I would be interested in suing them if they have a page up for me. How do I tell if they do?
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Brave taking cryptocurrency donations “for me” without my consent
281–290 of 354 posts
Re: Brave taking cryptocurrency donations “for me” without my consent
#282I don't totally understand what his problem is. He doesn't want to take money that people are trying to give him? What is the problem here exactly? If he doesn't want it, why not just donate it or something? It's not like the browser is setting up a crowd funding page for you.. it just lets you know you can pay your favorite content creators how you want instead of a huge unfair chunk going to google. And for the rec…
It's not like the browser is setting up a crowd funding page for you.
That is precisely what the browser is doing.
This can have harmful consequences for the people they do it to. If someone's on a means-tested disability benefit, for example, and makes youtube videos to blow off steam, what happens when the benefits agency discovers that they have a funding option through Brave? A funding option that they didn't know about, didn't ask for, and didn't get paid out of (because the tokens get quickly flushed into the "growth pool" when uncollected)? Is Brave ready to be responsible for them losing their support mechanism?
If they start collecting on behalf of an open-source project that already has a nonprofit foundation for fundraising, what happens when a tax audit turns up this undisclosed funding stream that the project didn't know about and didn't ask for? Oops, there goes your nonprofit status! Is Brave ready to be responsible for that?
About every six months someone comes up with this "brilliant" "new" idea to crypto-fundraise on behalf of other people without telling them. And we have the same thread where people point out the same problems. And then like clockwork someone does it again. My hope is that one of these times, the people behind it get so utterly and completely financially ruined that it finally puts an end to the cycle. Maybe Brave will be the one to finally face that.
Re: Brave taking cryptocurrency donations “for me” without my consent
#283Earlier quoted context omitted.
Google isn't impersonating Tom Scott here. Brave is. You're the bad guys here and you can't see it because you think everyone else is Google and Facebook and tracking people. People want nothing to do with either you or them. But clearly less to do with you. I'm not surprised that the angle is "sure we're bad but people will have to go for the guys with big pockets first". At least you know you're the bad guys. That'…
Brave is no more impersonating Tom Scott then Google is, in fact they use the same source of information and get it the same way, the only difference is in Brave, after they pull and display that information from the public place where Tom put it ( specifically how he put it there to get displayed in this fashion ) they let me decide if Tom should be able to have some of my money. Every other company that displays th…
Google doesn't pop up a thing asking me to donate to Tom Scott's fundraising campaign.
Brave apparently does (based on screenshots shared by others; in order to preserve my right to legal action in the future I'm very carefully never going to personally do anything that would require accepting Brave's ToS).
See my other comments in this thread for why A) that's a bad thing and B) if you work at Brave you should quit and hire a lawyer.
Re: Brave taking cryptocurrency donations “for me” without my consent
#284Edit: 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.
> IANAL but GDPR refers to personal data collected from users.
No, it addresses the collection and processing of personal data no matter where it is collected from.
> The only "Youtuber data" being "used" here is publicly gettable data from the Youtuber's channel.
Which is personal data that YouTube has collected or created associated with services they are providing to the user. They are responsible for their collection and use of it, but that doesn't authorize third-party collection and use of it under the GDPR. Particularly, the GDPR definition of personal data subject to the rules it imposes does not exclude information which is “publicly gettable” from some other party than the subject.
Re: Brave taking cryptocurrency donations “for me” without my consent
#285Earlier quoted context omitted.
My understanding is that automatically refunding as part of the agreement with the Brave user is probably workable. Even more workable is to be opt-in only. That's what I would do (to the point that I developed a protocol that's purely opt-in).
After all the very passionate feedback yesterday here and on Twitter, we're reworking things to make it clear who's participating in Brave Rewards and will receive tips and who's not and won't. We erred in shipping UI/UX that didn't make this clear enough. We're fixing this.
You erred in "opt-out" versus "opt-in". Literally your founder advocated this spammy method.
Re: Brave taking cryptocurrency donations “for me” without my consent
#286Earlier quoted context omitted.
Brave is no more impersonating Tom Scott then Google is, in fact they use the same source of information and get it the same way, the only difference is in Brave, after they pull and display that information from the public place where Tom put it ( specifically how he put it there to get displayed in this fashion ) they let me decide if Tom should be able to have some of my money. Every other company that displays th…
Google doesn't pop up a thing asking me to donate to Tom Scott's fundraising campaign. Brave apparently does (based on screenshots shared by others; in order to preserve my right to legal action in the future I'm very carefully never going to personally do anything that would require accepting Brave's ToS). See my other comments in this thread for why A) that's a bad thing and B) if you work at Brave you should quit…
Neither does Brave, its really clear when you use the browser that you are allocating your funds via the BAT system not "fundraising" on behalf of a person, and its also clear what happens to your funds if the person you allocated them to doesn't want them.
Also the idea your in more legal jeopardy working at Brave, then you are working at any other company is silly. There is a distinction in corporate liability between employees and officers of a company ( its why no Thanos employees have been held liable for the fraud there). It makes me wonder what is going on when I see people participating in such strong fearmongering. Especially when you are flat out wrong on some of the basic legal principles you are discussing.
Re: Brave taking cryptocurrency donations “for me” without my consent
#287Earlier quoted context omitted.
Google doesn't pop up a thing asking me to donate to Tom Scott's fundraising campaign. Brave apparently does (based on screenshots shared by others; in order to preserve my right to legal action in the future I'm very carefully never going to personally do anything that would require accepting Brave's ToS). See my other comments in this thread for why A) that's a bad thing and B) if you work at Brave you should quit…
Neither does Brave, its really clear when you use the browser that you are allocating your funds via the BAT system not "fundraising" on behalf of a person, and its also clear what happens to your funds if the person you allocated them to doesn't want them. Also the idea your in more legal jeopardy working at Brave, then you are working at any other company is silly. There is a distinction in corporate liability betw…
Like I said elsewhere: these kinds of schemes don't really "work". The best that happens is you get away with it for a while until you accidentally do it to someone with resources.
Are you carefully vetting every single entity whose content you show this pop-up on (regardless of what description you choose to use to spin what it is) to make sure none of them have trademarks that could be enforced against you? Because if any of them do, game over. You can hem and haw and deflect and pretend to be helping creators as much as you like, but you don't have the legal right to appropriate someone else's mark to raise money.
And if you are vetting to make sure you don't pop up on anyone who has a trademark, what if that comes out in discovery when someone goes after you, and suddenly you get to answer questions about whether Brave knew that what they were doing might not be legal (as evidenced by the care they took around trademarks), did it anyway, and now it's really over.
And like I said elsewhere: when the shit hits the fan, what's your personal plan for Brave deciding that all your "helpful" comments here weren't authorized and were in fact misrepresenting them, which led to the terrible misunderstandings that provoked the legal action?
I'm trying my best to help you see the ways this can go badly. I'm also very sincere in my advice of "lawyer up". I'm not your attorney and this isn't legal advice, but I think you should have both an attorney and legal advice.
The folks who've run this scheme in the past were mostly small-time, and the worst that happened was they were forced to stop or retool because they weren't worth the effort of going after properly. Brave has attracted enough attention and money to be a lucrative target for someone to eventually turn into a smoking hole in the ground. Please, for your sake, fix this or get out of it ASAP.
Re: Brave taking cryptocurrency donations “for me” without my consent
#288Earlier quoted context omitted.
After all the very passionate feedback yesterday here and on Twitter, we're reworking things to make it clear who's participating in Brave Rewards and will receive tips and who's not and won't. We erred in shipping UI/UX that didn't make this clear enough. We're fixing this.
You erred in "opt-out" versus "opt-in". Literally your founder advocated this spammy method.
I mean the founder created JavaScript. Can't expect a lot of good design from him, can we?
Re: Brave taking cryptocurrency donations “for me” without my consent
#289Earlier quoted context omitted.
I find it interesting this was not responded to as it is a great and easily understood description of how one could see Brave as a scam.
Response posted above! I was waiting to make sure I understood what actions we are taking in response to all the feedback.
This is classic "PR saving face". Referring to yourself as a "nerd" and trying to push a narrative that this entire firm is not actively malicious but rather just playfully incompetent is the epitome of running a front for a scam.
Re: Brave taking cryptocurrency donations “for me” without my consent
#290Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you're sincere, then for starters, how about removing the $100 threshold immediately, and notifying all people who have had donations made to them, so that they can come and claim the money?
You really want to get spammed with "claim your 5ct in donations for signing up on our website!" every day?
I'm suggesting that for starters, they do it once so that people are at least aware that someone is soliciting donations in their name. I don't think that's enough, but it's the biggest source of contention.