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

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

#341

Post by brandnewlow » Sun, Dec 23, 2018, 7:28 AM UTC

pull_my_finger wrote: post #337

brandnewlow wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That's not true. We spent a lot of time designing the UI for verified creators and did not spend adequate time thinking through the UI for unverified creators. The changes being rolled out tomorrow will address the concerns that have been voiced. No one will look like they are participating in the program who isn't.

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

#342

Post by ripdog » Sun, Dec 23, 2018, 9:18 AM UTC

chowells wrote: post #49

jimktrains2 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reload never seems to work for me. I give up after 1 or 2 reload tries, though. > it's clear that they just don't want people to use their web browser on mobile devices. Which is clearly user hostile. Reddit does a similar thing whwre they artificially delay showing thebpage and then block a quarter of it with a banner asking you to use the mobile app.

Oh, not the button it offers to try again. That button is junk. Hit reload on your browser. That works every time, at least in my experience.

The try again button works reliably for me on Firefox Mobile.

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

#343

Post by kdbg » Sun, Dec 23, 2018, 10:10 AM UTC

pull_my_finger wrote: post #339

kdbg wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

As an outsider I agree, and I think that would have headed off a lot of the complaints.

That said, I did ask the few people I know that have been using BAT. All three of them knew that there was a chance their tip wouldn't be received if it wasn't a verified user. So, from actual users, putting actual money into it, they understood how it worked.

Two of them specifically would only tip to verified accounts. The third said he saw it as an incentive to get the creators to join the platform, though he's also the most vocal and evangelistic about BAT.

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

#344

Post by jacques_chester » Sun, Dec 23, 2018, 10:50 AM UTC

jacques_chester wrote: post #86

> they said "we'll see what we can do" and that "refunds are impossible". If a judge finds they've established themselves as a trustee, this argument won't fly. In fact it will make a quite spectacular and expensive thudding sound. The trustee-beneficiary relationship arises from the situation and does not require a contract to be formed. If you are the legal owner of assets "for the benefit of" someone else, congrat…

Bonus round: https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1076198964607610880

Brave

1. Collects tokens from User A for the benefit of Website B

2. By design, loses track of who gave them which tokens

3. But somehow does not lose track of the tokens when it's time to put them into their own general ledger

4. Which they say they will do, mingling what are probably funds from constructive trusts into their own funds.

"Oh but it's OK!", comes the counterargument, "Our Terms of Service allow us to do this". The problem is that Terms of Service can say anything, you can sign a contract for anything, and still wind up as a trustee for a trust you created through your actions. And one thing that a trustee will be completely buggered by is appropriating trust assets for their own use. It's the kind of thing that the legal system enthusiastically tries to convert into glowing craters.

This whole scene is going to be extensively carpet bombed with popcorn, as a legal situation it is shaping up as disaster heaped high on hilarity.

Again: I am not a lawyer, but in Brave's position I would be looking for some.

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

#345

Post by jacques_chester » Sun, Dec 23, 2018, 11:05 AM UTC

brandnewlow wrote: post #308

jacques_chester wrote: post #181

Earlier 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).

We just posted a list of the many changes we're pushing live to address the problems found in our UI: https://brave.com/rewards-update/ One of the items listed is looking into blocking all tips to unverified publishers altogether. We hear people's concerns and are going to look into it. In the meantime we've dropped all creative assets (photos) for unverified publishers and are also adding a clear alert saying unveri…

It's good you are trying to listen to feedback. But do pay attention to a common thread: most publishers don't want opt-out, they want opt-in. I'm biased because I designed a different scheme[0] some time back which I guess in some universes would have made me a competitor.

So speaking as an alt-universe competitor, opt-in is the safest move. You can just as easily calculate an imaginary amount of money that would be collected and tell potential publishers that number (that was my plan, because of this exact scenario).

One more thing:

you should lawyer up.

You need a firm with strengths in consumer law, trademarks, charities fraud and trusts law, preferably able to opine across each of your physical HQ jurisdiction, the governing-law jurisdiction in your ToS and wherever Tom Scott lives.

[0] https://patents.google.com/patent/US9853964B2

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

#346

Post by bjl » Sun, Dec 23, 2018, 4:06 PM UTC

brandnewlow wrote: post #310

pushcx wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also: your responses here, and Brendan Eich's on Twitter, seem to assume you are somewhere in the general brand feel of the EFF or Firefox. That this is a big misunderstanding of a clearly well-intentioned feature from familiar volunteers to the public interest. You're nowhere near them. You're in the same mental headspace as ICO scams because you're also promising that if we give your cryptocurrency a bit of money t…

We've just published a post detailing the changes we're making to our UI in response to all the great criticism and feedback from the last 24 hours: https://brave.com/rewards-update/ These changes will make it very very clear when creators are not participating in Brave Rewards and will ensure no creator assets are being used. In response to your other comments, I feel good assuming we're somewhere in the general bra…

> In response to your other comments, I feel good assuming we're somewhere in the general brand feel of the EFF and Firefox.

That's laughable. Trust me, among the people who know about Brave at all, you're associated more with Dentacoin and Bitconnect than EFF and Mozilla. I expect you'll have a rude awakening when you're searching for your next job and people decide they don't want to hire a scam artist.

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

#347

Post by bjl » Sun, Dec 23, 2018, 4:09 PM UTC

brandnewlow wrote: post #314

bjl wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come on, man. The 'donation' UI was clearly designed to deceive visitors into thinking that the creator signed up and customized it themselves. Brave fucked up big time, and you aren't doing your employer any favors by commenting here; at this point the only people who should be making statements are Brave's lawyers.

We've just published a rundown on the many changes going into the UI to address concerns like these. You can find it here: https://brave.com/rewards-update/ We shipped confusing, poorly considered UI and are hustling to get it fixed. Thanks for your feedback.

Dude, that UI was not merely 'confusing', it was clearly intentionally deceptive. Nobody here is dumb enough to fall for such blatant PR spin.

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

#348

Post by rhlsthrm » Sun, Dec 23, 2018, 9:18 PM UTC

aphextron wrote: post #9

I'd been really loving Brave and using it as my daily driver for a few months now, until that I noticed that little "Brave Ads" icon at the end of the address bar. That's when I realized their entire business model is just in the usurpation of existing Google ad revenue, dressed up with "privacy concerns" for the good PR. This sent me on a journey to find a really solid, free, Chromium based browser that is totally d…

Honestly, if you're running a Mac, your rationale seems to point to using Safari as your browser. I had a similar thought process as you, and Apple's incentives as a company seem to align best with mine. Apple's incentive with Safari is to make your user experience of running on Apple products better, to keep you in the ecosystem. Apple has taken a hard stance on exposing, collecting, and sharing user data, and although some of their AI suffers from this (i.e. Siri), their stance is something I can get behind.

Apple seems like the only company that builds a browser that is not incentivized to collect ad revenue. I've been using Safari for everything for the past few weeks, and really liking it. The performance on Apple hardware seems better too, and there are some cool Apple ecosystem features built in. I'm a web developer so there are certain things I still need Chrome for, but in those cases I fire up a single Chrome tab and use Safari for everything else.

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

#349

Post by rsynnott » Sun, Dec 23, 2018, 10:29 PM UTC

brandnewlow wrote: post #111

908087 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the implication here that "fellow nerds" should always be given the benefit of the doubt for some reason? I've seen some "very nerdy" people engage in some "incredibly selfish and shady" activities, so I can't help but laugh at that idea.

Not specifically. But yes, fellow people should be given the benefit of the doubt in my opinion. I was asking if Brave had done something to merit not getting that.

> But yes, fellow people should be given the benefit of the doubt in my opinion.

That's... a fascinating approach to monitoring the actions of companies. "This company contains people, so everything is probably fine".

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

#350

Post by rsynnott » Sun, Dec 23, 2018, 10:44 PM UTC

brandnewlow wrote: post #326

imtringued wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably something like this... https://twitter.com/JTremback/status/1076213808706641925

We're shipping a bunch of fixes tomorrow that will (we hope) dramatically improve this: https://brave.com/rewards-update/

This... doesn't seem like much of an improvement?

"Not yet verified" would, I think, imply to many people that they will in the natural course of things be verified, and perhaps even that they've asked to be verified.

It would be better to say "Bla is not a user and will not get the money you donate now, and quite possibly not ever", or similar wording. Or just (and this is, er, the obvious approach) not allow this at all for people who haven't asked for it.