Brave taking cryptocurrency donations “for me” without my consent • Hacker News Board

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

#331

Post by brandnewlow » Sun, Dec 23, 2018, 4:59 AM UTC

Traster wrote: post #186

isoskeles wrote: post #171

If this person doesn't want his donations, or wants people to donate to some fund against malaria, I'm sure Brave can figure out how to redirect his funds to another donation site of his choice as a feature. Brave's attempt to find a new way to pay content creators (and, sure, insert themselves into the process) seems to be in good faith. And I'll admit that the complaints are mostly in good faith too, especially tha…

Let's be clear - you cannot start collecting donations on someone's behalf without their consent and expect them to be happy when they find out. Especially when the person you are donating to is a business person with their own public image that they have to maintain and especially when you act shifty about actually handing over the money. Brave might be a great group of people with fantastic intentions, but their be…

Not our intent. We shipped some bad UI, got a bunch of deserved flack for it, and have hustled to fix things. Changes go live tomorrow and are detailed here: https://brave.com/rewards-update/

Thanks for caring about this done in a respectful, creator-first way.

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

#332

Post by brandnewlow » Sun, Dec 23, 2018, 5:03 AM UTC

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

Brendan talked to a bunch of us on the team and we're rolling out a bunch of hotfixes tomorrow that address most of the valid concerns people have raised: https://brave.com/rewards-update/

As stated in the post, we're also going to talk about whether Brave users should be able to even try to send tips to unverified creators at all.

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

#333

Post by brandnewlow » Sun, Dec 23, 2018, 5:04 AM UTC

matt4077 wrote: post #67

“Brave” is just a blatant protection racket, trying to strongarm people that want nothing to do with him into contracts dictated by Eich. On the user-facing side, he’s replacing ads with his own, like a cheap motel WiFi. If you trust this blatant power- and money-grab with your privacy just because you see common cause with his mission to see traditional journalism die, I won’t shed a tear when we find out he’s selli…

This isn't what we're going after at all. We shipped some UI that didn't make it clear that non verified creators aren't actually participating in Brave Rewards and deservedly got a lot of flack for it. We're pushing up a bunch of fixes tomorrow that will (we hope) fix this: https://brave.com/rewards-update/

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

#334

Post by brandnewlow » Sun, Dec 23, 2018, 5:06 AM UTC

bscphil wrote: post #329

brandnewlow wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brave doesn't insert ads into the browser or otherwise replace web site ads. This is a thing people like to say about the company because it'd be obviously lame if we did this...but we don't do this. Do you have a citation for the claims that Brave does this?

If that's not what your Wikipedia page means, then it could hardly be more misleading. "Brave Software has announced that it is developing a feature allowing users to opt in to receiving ads sold by the company in place of ads blocked by the browser.[8][9][10] Brave intends to pay content publishers 55% of the replaced ad revenue. Brave Software, ad partners, and browser users would each be allocated 15% of the reven…

"in place of" is not correct. We're not replacing any ads in the browser. We are building a completely separate ad platform into Brave that will go live in 2019 but calling it a replacement for blocked ads is an inaccurate, weird construction. Not sure who wrote that wikipedia entry. The 55% number is not accurate either.

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

#335

Post by bscphil » Sun, Dec 23, 2018, 5:18 AM UTC

brandnewlow wrote: post #334

bscphil wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that's not what your Wikipedia page means, then it could hardly be more misleading. "Brave Software has announced that it is developing a feature allowing users to opt in to receiving ads sold by the company in place of ads blocked by the browser.[8][9][10] Brave intends to pay content publishers 55% of the replaced ad revenue. Brave Software, ad partners, and browser users would each be allocated 15% of the reven…

"in place of" is not correct. We're not replacing any ads in the browser. We are building a completely separate ad platform into Brave that will go live in 2019 but calling it a replacement for blocked ads is an inaccurate, weird construction. Not sure who wrote that wikipedia entry. The 55% number is not accurate either.

Could you explain what you mean by "a completely separate ad platform"? My understanding is that Brave's model is to block all native ads with tracking, and in the place on the site where that ad would normally be shown, to show an ad from Brave's own network. Is that accurate? If so, I think "replacement" is a very accurate label.

And here's a bit from Ars Technica's initial review of Brave:

"In practice, Brave just sounds like a cash-grab. Brave isn't just a glorified adblocker: after removing ads from a webpage, Brave then inserts its own programmatic ads. It sounds like these ads will be filled by ad networks that work with Brave directly, and Brave will somehow police these ads to make sure they're less invasive/malevolent than the original ads that were stripped out. In exchange, Brave will take a 15 percent cut of the ad revenue. Instead of using tracking cookies that follow you around the Internet, Brave will use your local browsing history to target ads."

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/01/mozil...

Is that inaccurate? Was that accurate at some point in the past? I don't deny that I could be wrong and misunderstanding what Brave is trying to do, but I would posit that I have done due diligence here. This does seem to be the idea the neutral tech media has of Brave, like it or not.

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

#336

Post by brandnewlow » Sun, Dec 23, 2018, 5:40 AM UTC

bscphil wrote: post #335

brandnewlow wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"in place of" is not correct. We're not replacing any ads in the browser. We are building a completely separate ad platform into Brave that will go live in 2019 but calling it a replacement for blocked ads is an inaccurate, weird construction. Not sure who wrote that wikipedia entry. The 55% number is not accurate either.

Could you explain what you mean by "a completely separate ad platform"? My understanding is that Brave's model is to block all native ads with tracking, and in the place on the site where that ad would normally be shown, to show an ad from Brave's own network. Is that accurate? If so, I think "replacement" is a very accurate label. And here's a bit from Ars Technica's initial review of Brave: "In practice, Brave just…

We're building a way for users to opt into getting a few ads a day in the form of device push notifications (alerts in the top right of your monitor etc). We're not injecting ads into the HTML of sites visitors view. So yes, we're doing ad stuff, but we're not "replacing" the ads that we're blocking. Does the distinction make sense?

To your point about the Ars Technica comments, my understanding of things from conversations since I've joined in July 2018 is that when Brave launched, they put out a lot of info about stuff they were _going_ to do, and one of those ideas was to replace ads. However soon after launch, a lot of folks in the company and outside of the company explained to management that this was a really stupid idea and would be scummy. So Brave never went forward with it though it was a talking point to journalists early on. You could argue that having an idea to do a scummy thing two years ago is very bad. I'd like to think it's good when startups listen to feedback and adjust their product plans accordingly.

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

#337

Post by pull_my_finger » Sun, Dec 23, 2018, 5:56 AM UTC

brandnewlow wrote: post #311

jacquesm wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't just look like a scam. That is a scam. You can't just go collecting for causes without being empowered to do so. It's the same as people that go door to door collecting money for some charity when they are actually just going to spend it on their own stuff.

Hi Jacquesm. We had no intention to scam people. We shipped a confusing UI that should have been better thought out. In response to all the passionate feedback from creators our product team worked around the clock to push up a bunch of hotfixes that should go live tomorrow. You can read about them here: https://brave.com/rewards-update/ Thanks for jumping into the conversation. Also thanks for all the stories on HN…

The UI isn't the only problem. Take your blinders off. People don't want to be opted into a service like this. I believe it was intentional to make it "look" like everyone is already a part of this (see facebook's creating "shadow accounts" so people think everyone is already on there). This is a scammy move and you need to stop. If you don't think you can get your foot in the door in a new market space legitimately then just stick to making a browser and leave tips/funding to Patreon and others.

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

#338

Post by pull_my_finger » Sun, Dec 23, 2018, 6:40 AM UTC

brandnewlow wrote: post #336

bscphil wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you explain what you mean by "a completely separate ad platform"? My understanding is that Brave's model is to block all native ads with tracking, and in the place on the site where that ad would normally be shown, to show an ad from Brave's own network. Is that accurate? If so, I think "replacement" is a very accurate label. And here's a bit from Ars Technica's initial review of Brave: "In practice, Brave just…

We're building a way for users to opt into getting a few ads a day in the form of device push notifications (alerts in the top right of your monitor etc). We're not injecting ads into the HTML of sites visitors view. So yes, we're doing ad stuff, but we're not "replacing" the ads that we're blocking. Does the distinction make sense? To your point about the Ars Technica comments, my understanding of things from conver…

> when Brave launched, they put out a lot of info about stuff they were _going_ to do, and one of those ideas was to replace ads

So it's not exactly a baseless claim. I think between that ad idea, and this donation scam, I would _never_ use Brave nor recommend it to anyone. On top of that, it is blood boiling to watch you sit here and try to defend this scheme as a "UI problem" over and over again.

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

#339

Post by pull_my_finger » Sun, Dec 23, 2018, 6:44 AM UTC

kdbg wrote: post #300

detaro wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you show screenshots of that? What do the prompts from https://twitter.com/ummjackson/status/1076221401353207808 look like for a verified publisher?

http://se.ri0.us/2018-12-22-184516548-9adee.png It has a pretty obvious mark under the name if they are verified.

Maybe instead there should be a big red "X" or something if they _aren't_ verified

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

#340

Post by brandnewlow » Sun, Dec 23, 2018, 7:25 AM UTC

pull_my_finger wrote: post #338

brandnewlow wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're building a way for users to opt into getting a few ads a day in the form of device push notifications (alerts in the top right of your monitor etc). We're not injecting ads into the HTML of sites visitors view. So yes, we're doing ad stuff, but we're not "replacing" the ads that we're blocking. Does the distinction make sense? To your point about the Ars Technica comments, my understanding of things from conver…

> when Brave launched, they put out a lot of info about stuff they were _going_ to do, and one of those ideas was to replace ads So it's not exactly a baseless claim. I think between that ad idea, and this donation scam, I would _never_ use Brave nor recommend it to anyone. On top of that, it is blood boiling to watch you sit here and try to defend this scheme as a "UI problem" over and over again.

No it is a baseless claim. Brave's never replaced ads and has no plans to do so. And yes, this was a UI mistake that's being fixed as quickly as we can to address valid concerns from users.