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Brave taking cryptocurrency donations “for me” without my consent

323 points by plusCubed 8y ago

plusCubed 8y ago
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-attention-token-platform-to-youtube 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 donations? What does Brave do with unclaimed donations? Someone pointed out this concern in an earlier submission: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15730661 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15730661 Furthermore, OP said that they might not be following GDPR due to collection of YouTuber data (to assign donations). IANAL, anyone know how compliant this is?
- ecp9 8y ago
  This is so weird, I keep meaning to check out the brave browser but knowing it's tied into cryptocoin nonsense drops my interest level to zero.
  - rchaud 8y ago
    I agree, this is a terrible look for the company. They need to apologize, suspend the service and be honest with users about how this works, before announcing a reboot. That being said, I've been using Brave on Android since early 2017, and it's been great. I don't think the BAT stuff is in the mobile version, but I did see it on the desktop Windows version recently.
- brandnewlow 8y ago
  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.
  - AnabeeKnox 8y ago
    Search on this page for the word "fraud". Here's what I'd do in your position: remove anything on the internet which personally identifies you as an employee of your company. Nobody knows what is going to happen next, but be prepared for it.
    - CryptoPunk 8y ago
      There is zero chance an employee is going to get in trouble because a browser company they worked for collected funds in an escrow account to be released in the event that an intended recipient signs up.
      - thinkmassive 8y ago
        Might want to hold off until we see what legal discovery turns up in chat logs, emails, etc
        jacques_chester 8y ago
        Incidentally, a reminder: pre-emptively destroying records under the apprehension that you might be served with a lawsuit is A Bad Idea.
      - jblow 8y ago
        I would think twice about hiring someone if their previous place of work was a scam company, at least because it tells me something about that person's ethical compass.
      - Obi_Juan_Kenobi 8y ago
        He calls himself VC, so he may be more liable than you think.
      - ubernostrum 8y ago
        There is a non-zero chance that a company in legal trouble will suddenly decide an employee wasn't authorized to speak on their behalf and so clearly misrepresent their perfectly legal and honest intentions, and throw that employee under a bus. Best thing to avoid that, as I said in another comment, is to quit and get a lawyer.
lunulata 8y ago
that does sound brave
- jessaustin 8y ago
  I suppose bravery is somewhat akin to chutzpah...
  - lunulata 8y ago
    lol yeah, chutzpah, thinking more brave than shameless going forward with a blatantly illegal business model. Fraud is more than just frowned upon
bibinou 8y ago
Who is me?
- plusCubed 8y ago
  Tom Scott, an educational YouTuber. (I am not him, the title was changed by a mod I think)
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - dang 8y ago
    Yes—we changed the title to use language from the original text. Use of the first person in titles refers to authors, not submitters.
    - plusCubed 8y ago
      Ah got it. Maybe the first-person part can be added to https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html ?
- anticensor 8y ago
  Tom Scott, who records educational videos wearing red T-shirt.
davidgerard 8y ago
Brave is using the "opt-out" method used by tip4commit in 2014: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8542969 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8542969 From the comments there, a lot of projects dealt with that one by acting against such an abuse of their trademarks.
davidgerard 8y ago
Brendan Eich answers on Twitter: https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1076187316748615680 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
- hackcasual 8y ago
  > 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 permission.
  - gregknicholson 8y ago
    > the ability to paypal or western union or otherwise send to people without their consent exists Surely the recipient has to create a PayPal or Western Union account first, which constitutes giving permission for that company to take payment on their behalf. And in fairness, the complaint isn't even that money is being sent to people without their consent. The problem is that the money isn't actually being sent to those people at all — Brave are keeping it.
    - Fuebxien 8y ago
      That's not how Western Union works. The recipient goes to WU and presents matching ID.
      - shkkmo 8y ago
        Western Union doesn't claim to be accepting donations on creators behalfs. Western Union can refund money sent if it hasn't been collected by the recipient. Western Union doesn't require a minimum amount of money be sent to a recipient before they collect. Really, it is 1 & 2 together that seem to mark this clearly as fraud. 3 doesn't help either.
aphextron 8y ago
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 de-Googled, which seems absolutely impossible. I've tacitly settled on Vivaldi, but it's just impossible to really know if they are trustworthy as a company in the long run. Ultimately I feel like I can only trust a browser who's entire build process is open source at this point.
- rthomas6 8y ago
  Honest question. Why not Firefox? What are your concerns with it?
  - aphextron 8y ago
    I've tried over and over for decades to like Firefox, but I just don't. I can't say it's a rational decision entirely. But beyond that, I just think that Mozilla's motives can't really be trusted at face value with the amount of revenue they have these days, and their whole profile sync service. It just comes down to incentives, and any company which collects any kind of data has the incentive to profit at our expense regardless of ideology. Especially where people's salaries could depend on it.
    - ceejayoz 8y ago
      What about the profile sync service can't be trusted? It's end-to-end encrypted. Mozilla doesn't have the keys.
      - aphextron 8y ago
        It's just an attack vector I wish didn't exist at all. There's also metadata. Sure Mozilla doesn't have your passwords, but they know who you have passwords with. That creeps me out. There's nothing wrong with the all-purpose heavily featured approach of stuff like Chrome and Firefox, and I get that other people like Sync, I just really wish there was a totally stripped down basic internet browser I could trust.
joshuamorton 8y ago
I hate to say I told you so, but I told you so[1], and it looks like eichs tune hasn't changed much[2]. It's like, very obvious that this would be an issue. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15723512 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15723512 [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15735214 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15735214
jimktrains2 8y ago
People complain about paywalls, but this is literally the first Twitter link I've looked at in days and I get a rate limiting error. I don't mind paywalls, but wish micropayments we're easier. Whatever anti-user stuff Twitter has been up to (this isn't a new problem) is just atrocious.
- chowells 8y ago
  That rate limit isn't about pay walls. It's just twitter's desire to force mobile users to use their app. Every single time a mobile user goes to a non-mobile Twitter url, they will hit that "error". Given that it's 100% reproducible, trivial to fix, and trivial to work around (hit reload. No wait needed), it's clear that they just don't want people to use their web browser on mobile devices.
  - Jonnax 8y ago
    They also remove it if you login on the mobile web page. So perhaps it's them just trying to get you be be identifiable.
  - jimktrains2 8y ago
    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.
    - chowells 8y ago
      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.
      - jimktrains2 8y ago
        Yes, whats what I meant, ctrl+r
Solar19 8y ago
How would it work otherwise? How would we automate consent from the relevant webmaster, website owner, etc? It seems like we wouldn't be able to successful communicate with the principal in many or most cases. I've thought of something vaguely similar – documenting website behavior and optimization opportunities without the involvement of publishers. It would be nice to have a known online resource/repository for this, kind of like the security vulnerability communication website that I can't remember at the moment.
- llukas 8y ago
  It wouldn't. Nobody owes you automated consent or anything.
- ceejayoz 8y ago
  > How would it work otherwise? Who says it has to? > How would we automate consent from the relevant webmaster, website owner, etc? Same way Let's Encrypt does for SSL - put a file in `.well-known` indicating you want it and consent to it.
chrisper 8y ago
Does this have anything to do with Brave Browser? It's not quite clear to me.
- bpicolo 8y ago
  Yes. That's what it's referring to
  - chrisper 8y ago
    I see thanks. I guess it wasn't clear to me because I only use them on my Android.
    - chrisper 8y ago
      Thanks for all the downvotes for a normal question, kind people.
SheinhardtWigCo 8y ago
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?
- davidgerard 8y ago
  > How is that not fraud? The answer appears to be "technically", and "sue if you think you're big enough".
  - matt4077 8y ago
    Fraud is a criminal offense. It needs a prosecutor, not a plaintiff.
    - nradov 8y ago
      In the US legal system there are both criminal and civil forms of fraud. A plaintiff can sue for fraud in civil court, seeking damages or specific performance.
      - anticensor 8y ago
        Really? In Europe, if an offense has both civil and criminal forms, criminal courts are authorised for both forms of said offense, difference lying in procedure instead.
        nradov 8y ago
        Yes really. I doubt that applies to all countries in Europe. The UK legal system is similar to the American one. US criminal courts can order defendants convicted of fraud to pay restitution to their victims.
  - jblow 8y ago
wgpete 8y ago
who cares?
lmcarreiro 8y ago
People could do something similar for open source projects: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18736006 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18736006
- davidgerard 8y ago
  tip4commit tried it in 2014, and it didn't go down so well: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8542969 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8542969
- davefp 8y ago
  Tidelift is the latest attempt at this: https://tidelift.com/ https://tidelift.com/ They don't adequately explain what happens if a project has no 'lifters' and it sounds like it could have the same problems as Brave.
egypturnash 8y ago
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/ 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 transfer funds wherever you choose”, which suggests that there’s no way to just say “send my my balance every month” and forget about it. This whole model totally breaks down when you remember that there’s a ton of independent creators who don’t have their own sites, but instead post stuff on another site. Is Brave going to realize that I’m following this particular person on YouTube, that person on Tumblr, this other person on Deviantart, etc, etc? And are they going to ping them or are they just gonna tell the people who own the site? The page where you sign up to receive payments (https://publishers.basicattentiontoken.org https://publishers.basicattentiontoken.org) makes it sound like they understand YouTube accounts and nothing else, and as a creator whos interest in pivoting to video is nonexistent, screw that, I’ll stick with Patreon and it’s opt-in model that just transfers money into my bank account every month as long as I have patrons.
- duxup 8y ago
  That sounds so clumsy that I suspect they really don't care / want folks to fail to collect.
  - egypturnash 8y ago
    Yeah I suspect this is part of their overall revenue model.
    - brandnewlow 8y ago
      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.)
      - 8y ago
callinyouin 8y ago
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/1076187316748615680 https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1076187316748615680
- jonny_eh 8y ago
  This must be against some kind of law, I'm not sure which though.
  - cyphar 8y ago
    You could argue it's charity fraud, though the "intended" target isn't being represented as a charity they are being given donations (so "charity donation fraud", I guess). But it's likely some flavour of fraud.
  - dictum 8y ago
    IA-definitely-NAL, but I can't see a way that opt-out can be legal here. Maybe the legal defense applies the same logic of consent in third-party tracking (third-party provides the service in behalf of the first-party, to whose terms you agreed by using its service. Even that may clash with laws like GDPR): Brave, third-party, is providing a service to the first-party – the browser's user – who contracted it as a way to provide a best-attempt donation for the creator. (If it's not obvious, I'm not privy to the details AND US federal and states' law) The only legal way I can see to do what Brave currently does is to spam the hell out of creators (ah, growth hacking) when someone attempts a donation, but only take the money after the creator signs up.
    - erikpukinskis 8y ago
      Well, how about this... I'll send you $20, if you agree to try to get $15 to the XKCD guy somehow. If you accept this deal, have you broken the law?
russdpale 8y ago
I 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 record, and of you are free to send me money in any which way you can, I even accept trained pigeon courier!
- magissima 8y ago
  The problem isn't that people are trying to give him money, it's that Brave is asking people for that money on his behalf, trying to give it to him, and then not returning it when he turns it down.
- detaro 8y ago
  > It's not like the browser is setting up a crowd funding page for you Isn't it pretty much like this? How many people would use some other way of giving a creator money if they knew that the creator isn't actually signed up for Brave's thing and they're creating additional work for them, or that the money might even be distributed to others at some point? EDIT: some screenshots: https://twitter.com/ummjackson/status/1076221401353207808 https://twitter.com/ummjackson/status/1076221401353207808 - zero indication that's not going directly to the creator
- ubernostrum 8y ago
  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.
raverbashing 8y ago
Given that some people will give money to any basic bitcoin scam in twitter, I'm not surprised But yeah, the whole situation is ridiculous, might be grounds for a nice lawsuit.
matt4077 8y ago
“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 selling clickstreams to the highest bidder.
- brandnewlow 8y ago
  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/ https://brave.com/rewards-update/
davidgerard 8y ago
If anyone's wondering what got Tom Scott so upset, it was probably this page in the UI flow: https://twitter.com/JTremback/status/1076213808706641925 https://twitter.com/JTremback/status/1076213808706641925
- russley 8y ago
  I think this is also a good representation of why its quite misleading: https://twitter.com/ummjackson/status/1076218351486087168 https://twitter.com/ummjackson/status/1076218351486087168
jacques_chester 8y ago
> 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, congratulations, you are probably a trustee. Why does this matter? Because trusteeship comes with a fiduciary duty. Fiduciary duty is a heavy burden. If it's applied to Brave it will create merry havoc: a pile of money that they cannot touch, under any circumstances. A pile of money that they must return, if it cannot be forwarded to the intended recipient. A pile of money that cannot be mixed with anything else in any way. The requirement to put the interests of the beneficiary ahead of their own. And on and on. It's an attempt to be clever at marketing, to create an incentive to sign up. But as a legal situation it's a swamp full of unstable turd grenades. ... of course, I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice. Maybe Brave found a friendly jurisdiction or a quirk in trusts law that they can squeeze through. But given the history of startups wishing that law doesn't real, I kinda doubt it.
- jacques_chester 8y ago
  By way of disclaimer, I've watched this segment for years because I've sometimes intended to enter it myself on a similar-but-not-identical business model. But being aware of the concept of a trust, I've avoided this idea entirely and watched previous failed attempts (eg Readability) with great interest.
- jacques_chester 8y ago
  Bonus round: https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1076198964607610880 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.
woah 8y ago
Venmo has been doing this forever: https://help.venmo.com/hc/en-us/articles/217532047-I-paid-a-New-User- https://help.venmo.com/hc/en-us/articles/217532047-I-paid-a-...
- ryanlol 8y ago
  Venmo lets you easily recover the money though, and probably automatically returns it after a while. Paypal does the same, and automatically returns the money to the sender if it's not claimed for a while.
nikisweeting 8y ago
This is the same growing pain that all the Git tip services went through. First, they accepted tips on behalf of repo maintainers on Github with the intention of letting those maintainers collect their tips later, then after a huge backlash they made it opt-in. This cycle will repeat for any service that allows a platform to collect payments on behalf of users without asking the recipients for consent in advance.
smsm42 8y ago
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?
- CryptoPunk 8y ago
  I think you earn BAT for browing while ads are turned on.
- jetzzz 8y ago
  It is a token issued on Ethereum blockchain and is traded on many exchanges. So yes, you can buy and sell them. Your 60 BAT are worth $8. https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/basic-attention-token/ https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/basic-attention-token/
dkhenry 8y ago
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.
- scarejunba 8y ago
  It’s no surprise that you’d ignore blatant copyright violation, misrepresentation, and abuse of personal data when you’re a fan of the project.
  - dkhenry 8y ago
    Except its none of those things. The courts have held that not subjecting yourself to advertisements is covered under the "Fair Use Doctrine". This is why Ad Blockers, Tracking blockers, or both are not only legal, but built into every single major computing platform. This is now taking that concept and allowing me to pay for things I like. I would love to hear how you think Ad Blocking is blatant copyright violation, or how linking to content on the internet is misrepresentation.
    - scarejunba 8y ago
      I think ad blocking is fine. I don’t think you get to copy someone’s photo of themself and distribute it on your platform without asking them first.
      - dkhenry 8y ago
_eht 8y ago
Stop you're crashing my BAT investments! /s https://screenshots.firefox.com/tqACbxJj731kH7Ri/pro.coinbase.com https://screenshots.firefox.com/tqACbxJj731kH7Ri/pro.coinbas...
GreaterFool 8y ago
It does indeed sound like a mess. Keybase had a better idea: tie various identities to something stronger (private key). That way you can say: I'm X on reddit, Y on HN, Z on YouTube, etc. I think Brave could follow the same model, just make it seamless (or partner with Keybase). You could take it further. Why one and not multiple owners? Imagine you have a handle H on HN and then that handle publishes 5 messages of "My public key is XYZ". Then if someone were to donate to H through the system you could split it between participants. And you could run with that! Why even split if you could build some crypto system of control on top of that through smart contracts that lets you basically manage a small organization.
imustbeevil 8y ago
To anyone who has mistakenly "donated" to someone through this service, here's a link to the FTC complaint assistant for reporting fraud, namely "Pretending to be a representative or employee of a business". You don't have to be a lawyer to let the FTC decide whether this is misleading marketing or not. I honestly like the BAT idea. This is not the way to implement it, and based on the responses from Eich on twitter, and the representative in this thread, it seems like they aren't going to willingly change their scheme. https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/ https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/
isoskeles 8y ago
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 that there should be a feature to opt-out, or there should be a way to receive your funds automatically (I'm surprised and don't 100% believe that there is not). But the complaints and arguments saying this is "fraud" seem to be in bad faith. There's no evidence that these donations are completely irretrievable from the creators they were intended to go toward. Stop emotionally throwing around the word "fraud" as if there's criminal intent here for Brave to keep every penny of donations, zero intent to ever make that money available to the intended recipients.
- Traster 8y ago
  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 behaviour here is identical to someone committing identity theft.
  - isoskeles 8y ago
    > identical to someone committing identity theft I don't fully understand what you mean here. Are they attempting to take out loans or credit cards for their own use with this person's information, resulting in potentially ruinous consequences for this person's credit? Rhetorical question in that case, but really, I'd like to understand what you mean. Is it in reference to your first sentence? My assumption is that people using the Brave browser or extension (I don't know how it works) would see these donation solicitations on every blog and understand that they're (Brave) collecting donations on behalf of just about anyone, not some specific person they are pretending to be, and not in any sense where these people are opting in to their platform one-at-a-time.
Tsubasachan 8y ago
Why are we rewarding the current way internet advertising works? Host your own ads and I won't block them. Until then F off.
- detaro 8y ago
  How is a tipping function "rewarding the current way internet advertising works"?
hollasch 8y ago
My basic objection to the "opt-out" scheme is that my browser is effectively acting as a man-in-the-middle agent, confusing both the reader and the author, and co-opting any existing compensation or donation procedure. For example, consider http://www.vim.org http://www.vim.org, which hosts the text editor Vim. The author, Bram Moolenaar, makes this editor freely-available, and asks that any donations be directed to ICCF Holand, a charity that serves the Kibaale Children's Center in Uganda. The Brave browser, as it stands now, inserts itself in the middle of this established reader/contributor relationship and now claims that it'll take your donations and administer them on Bram's behalf. The user who falls for this scheme then sees what appears to be _additional_ requests for donations (the _actual_ request). _At a minimum_, this inserted message sows confusion where there once was none. In the worst case, money that would have gone to the ICCF is now held in escrow by Brave, and may or may not be delivered, and if so, will go to Bram directly rather than to the charity he hopes to support. This is just one example of how the browser intercepting and modifying what you see is a truly bad design (intentional or not).
- sonicdream 8y ago
  Bad example. The purpose of the BAT token is for ads and tipping, not for donations. Hence the name, Basic Attention Token.
  - hollasch 8y ago
    I use the Vim browser, and I want to support the project. Let me just grab the manual to gain a clear understanding of the terms and definitions the browser requires me to understand before I render said support according to the protocol we (reader and author) now find ourselves subject to. Oh Brave new world …
  - sftwds 8y ago
    What is the difference between a “tip” and a “donation”?
- brandnewlow 8y ago
  Thanks for laying this out. Due to great posts like this and many others in this thread and on Twitter our eng. team is pushing up a bunch of changes tomorrow. You can read about them here: https://brave.com/rewards-update/ https://brave.com/rewards-update/ The bottom line is that it will be much much much clearer that unverified creators are not participating in Brave Rewards and what happens to any BAT tips a user tries to send to one. We'll also not be using any creative assets at all from unverified creators like their Youtube images. In the post we also commit to looking into whether to block attempts to tip unverified creators altogether.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
stevenicr 8y ago
Is this de-platform proof? eg, if <insert-controversial-site-or-person> - and they got lots of complaints for triggering <whatever-major-taboo-thing> - can the payments to gab,storm,badguy,badgirl,camgirl etc get stopped from brave or get brave stopped from taking payments all together from higher up the chain or whatever?
elwell 8y ago
Instead of taking donations for other people, we here at ClearCoin replace all the ads you see with ads from our network that reward the user with our crypto token, and content creators can opt-in to share in the profit. Chrome Extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/clearcoin-the-ad-blocker/benncgglohdbeapbakcebdobkdbkdcba https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/clearcoin-the-ad-b...
- omnimus 8y ago
  How is that different from Brave/BAT?
  - elwell 8y ago
    I don't think Brave has ad replacement live yet. The main difference is that you don't have to change browsers, just install an extension.
nyrosis 8y ago
No way is this going to fly under GDPR. Whatever genius had this idea needs to be held accountable legally for a massive breach of trust. Opt out isn't going to fly in 2018. Collecting money on the behalf of individuals is fine IF they opt in to the service. I imagine this service would have exploded in popularity and been perfectly legal if it was opt in but now.. Yeah.. heads should roll.
untangle 8y ago
Brave jumped the shark when they chose to prioritize an ICO and "revolutionize ads" over core browser functionality. They are now ironically spinning their own flavor of making the user the product. Just say no. Uninstall.
lolc 8y ago
Hey guys I'm collecting donations for the Brave Browser to implement the BAT scheme responsibly. We've discovered some issues with it and think it needs overhauling. Please donate to Standard Chartered Bank, Frankfurt, Germany; SWIFT/BIC Code: SCBLDEFX IBAN: DE67512305000500136802 Beneficiary Name: SVB-Mozilla Foundation You're helping a great project that way! (Note: You might not actually be donating to the Brave Browser directly and some of the funds may go to other projects.)

323 points by plusCubed 8y ago

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-attention-token-platform-to-youtube 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 donations? What does Brave do with unclaimed donations? Someone pointed out this concern in an earlier submission: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15730661 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15730661 Furthermore, OP said that they might not be following GDPR due to collection of YouTuber data (to assign donations). IANAL, anyone know how compliant this is?

ecp9 8y ago
This is so weird, I keep meaning to check out the brave browser but knowing it's tied into cryptocoin nonsense drops my interest level to zero.
- rchaud 8y ago
  I agree, this is a terrible look for the company. They need to apologize, suspend the service and be honest with users about how this works, before announcing a reboot. That being said, I've been using Brave on Android since early 2017, and it's been great. I don't think the BAT stuff is in the mobile version, but I did see it on the desktop Windows version recently.
brandnewlow 8y ago
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.
- AnabeeKnox 8y ago
  Search on this page for the word "fraud". Here's what I'd do in your position: remove anything on the internet which personally identifies you as an employee of your company. Nobody knows what is going to happen next, but be prepared for it.
  - CryptoPunk 8y ago
    There is zero chance an employee is going to get in trouble because a browser company they worked for collected funds in an escrow account to be released in the event that an intended recipient signs up.
    - thinkmassive 8y ago
      Might want to hold off until we see what legal discovery turns up in chat logs, emails, etc
      - jacques_chester 8y ago
        Incidentally, a reminder: pre-emptively destroying records under the apprehension that you might be served with a lawsuit is A Bad Idea.
    - jblow 8y ago
      I would think twice about hiring someone if their previous place of work was a scam company, at least because it tells me something about that person's ethical compass.
    - Obi_Juan_Kenobi 8y ago
      He calls himself VC, so he may be more liable than you think.
    - ubernostrum 8y ago
      There is a non-zero chance that a company in legal trouble will suddenly decide an employee wasn't authorized to speak on their behalf and so clearly misrepresent their perfectly legal and honest intentions, and throw that employee under a bus. Best thing to avoid that, as I said in another comment, is to quit and get a lawyer.

lunulata 8y ago

that does sound brave

jessaustin 8y ago
I suppose bravery is somewhat akin to chutzpah...
- lunulata 8y ago
  lol yeah, chutzpah, thinking more brave than shameless going forward with a blatantly illegal business model. Fraud is more than just frowned upon

bibinou 8y ago

Who is me?

plusCubed 8y ago
Tom Scott, an educational YouTuber. (I am not him, the title was changed by a mod I think)
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- dang 8y ago
  Yes—we changed the title to use language from the original text. Use of the first person in titles refers to authors, not submitters.
  - plusCubed 8y ago
    Ah got it. Maybe the first-person part can be added to https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html ?
anticensor 8y ago
Tom Scott, who records educational videos wearing red T-shirt.

davidgerard 8y ago

Brave is using the "opt-out" method used by tip4commit in 2014: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8542969 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8542969 From the comments there, a lot of projects dealt with that one by acting against such an abuse of their trademarks.

davidgerard 8y ago

Brendan Eich answers on Twitter: https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1076187316748615680 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

hackcasual 8y ago
> 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 permission.
- gregknicholson 8y ago
  > the ability to paypal or western union or otherwise send to people without their consent exists Surely the recipient has to create a PayPal or Western Union account first, which constitutes giving permission for that company to take payment on their behalf. And in fairness, the complaint isn't even that money is being sent to people without their consent. The problem is that the money isn't actually being sent to those people at all — Brave are keeping it.
  - Fuebxien 8y ago
    That's not how Western Union works. The recipient goes to WU and presents matching ID.
    - shkkmo 8y ago
      Western Union doesn't claim to be accepting donations on creators behalfs. Western Union can refund money sent if it hasn't been collected by the recipient. Western Union doesn't require a minimum amount of money be sent to a recipient before they collect. Really, it is 1 & 2 together that seem to mark this clearly as fraud. 3 doesn't help either.

aphextron 8y ago

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 de-Googled, which seems absolutely impossible. I've tacitly settled on Vivaldi, but it's just impossible to really know if they are trustworthy as a company in the long run. Ultimately I feel like I can only trust a browser who's entire build process is open source at this point.

rthomas6 8y ago
Honest question. Why not Firefox? What are your concerns with it?
- aphextron 8y ago
  I've tried over and over for decades to like Firefox, but I just don't. I can't say it's a rational decision entirely. But beyond that, I just think that Mozilla's motives can't really be trusted at face value with the amount of revenue they have these days, and their whole profile sync service. It just comes down to incentives, and any company which collects any kind of data has the incentive to profit at our expense regardless of ideology. Especially where people's salaries could depend on it.
  - ceejayoz 8y ago
    What about the profile sync service can't be trusted? It's end-to-end encrypted. Mozilla doesn't have the keys.
    - aphextron 8y ago
      It's just an attack vector I wish didn't exist at all. There's also metadata. Sure Mozilla doesn't have your passwords, but they know who you have passwords with. That creeps me out. There's nothing wrong with the all-purpose heavily featured approach of stuff like Chrome and Firefox, and I get that other people like Sync, I just really wish there was a totally stripped down basic internet browser I could trust.

joshuamorton 8y ago

I hate to say I told you so, but I told you so[1], and it looks like eichs tune hasn't changed much[2]. It's like, very obvious that this would be an issue. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15723512 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15723512 [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15735214 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15735214

jimktrains2 8y ago

People complain about paywalls, but this is literally the first Twitter link I've looked at in days and I get a rate limiting error. I don't mind paywalls, but wish micropayments we're easier. Whatever anti-user stuff Twitter has been up to (this isn't a new problem) is just atrocious.

chowells 8y ago
That rate limit isn't about pay walls. It's just twitter's desire to force mobile users to use their app. Every single time a mobile user goes to a non-mobile Twitter url, they will hit that "error". Given that it's 100% reproducible, trivial to fix, and trivial to work around (hit reload. No wait needed), it's clear that they just don't want people to use their web browser on mobile devices.
- Jonnax 8y ago
  They also remove it if you login on the mobile web page. So perhaps it's them just trying to get you be be identifiable.
- jimktrains2 8y ago
  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.
  - chowells 8y ago
    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.
    - jimktrains2 8y ago
      Yes, whats what I meant, ctrl+r

Solar19 8y ago

How would it work otherwise? How would we automate consent from the relevant webmaster, website owner, etc? It seems like we wouldn't be able to successful communicate with the principal in many or most cases. I've thought of something vaguely similar – documenting website behavior and optimization opportunities without the involvement of publishers. It would be nice to have a known online resource/repository for this, kind of like the security vulnerability communication website that I can't remember at the moment.

llukas 8y ago
It wouldn't. Nobody owes you automated consent or anything.
ceejayoz 8y ago
> How would it work otherwise? Who says it has to? > How would we automate consent from the relevant webmaster, website owner, etc? Same way Let's Encrypt does for SSL - put a file in `.well-known` indicating you want it and consent to it.

chrisper 8y ago

Does this have anything to do with Brave Browser? It's not quite clear to me.

bpicolo 8y ago
Yes. That's what it's referring to
- chrisper 8y ago
  I see thanks. I guess it wasn't clear to me because I only use them on my Android.
  - chrisper 8y ago
    Thanks for all the downvotes for a normal question, kind people.

SheinhardtWigCo 8y ago

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?

davidgerard 8y ago
> How is that not fraud? The answer appears to be "technically", and "sue if you think you're big enough".
- matt4077 8y ago
  Fraud is a criminal offense. It needs a prosecutor, not a plaintiff.
  - nradov 8y ago
    In the US legal system there are both criminal and civil forms of fraud. A plaintiff can sue for fraud in civil court, seeking damages or specific performance.
    - anticensor 8y ago
      Really? In Europe, if an offense has both civil and criminal forms, criminal courts are authorised for both forms of said offense, difference lying in procedure instead.
      - nradov 8y ago
        Yes really. I doubt that applies to all countries in Europe. The UK legal system is similar to the American one. US criminal courts can order defendants convicted of fraud to pay restitution to their victims.
- jblow 8y ago

wgpete 8y ago

who cares?

lmcarreiro 8y ago

People could do something similar for open source projects: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18736006 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18736006

davidgerard 8y ago
tip4commit tried it in 2014, and it didn't go down so well: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8542969 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8542969
davefp 8y ago
Tidelift is the latest attempt at this: https://tidelift.com/ https://tidelift.com/ They don't adequately explain what happens if a project has no 'lifters' and it sounds like it could have the same problems as Brave.

egypturnash 8y ago

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/ 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 transfer funds wherever you choose”, which suggests that there’s no way to just say “send my my balance every month” and forget about it. This whole model totally breaks down when you remember that there’s a ton of independent creators who don’t have their own sites, but instead post stuff on another site. Is Brave going to realize that I’m following this particular person on YouTube, that person on Tumblr, this other person on Deviantart, etc, etc? And are they going to ping them or are they just gonna tell the people who own the site? The page where you sign up to receive payments (https://publishers.basicattentiontoken.org https://publishers.basicattentiontoken.org) makes it sound like they understand YouTube accounts and nothing else, and as a creator whos interest in pivoting to video is nonexistent, screw that, I’ll stick with Patreon and it’s opt-in model that just transfers money into my bank account every month as long as I have patrons.

duxup 8y ago
That sounds so clumsy that I suspect they really don't care / want folks to fail to collect.
- egypturnash 8y ago
  Yeah I suspect this is part of their overall revenue model.
  - brandnewlow 8y ago
    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.)
    - 8y ago

callinyouin 8y ago

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/1076187316748615680 https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1076187316748615680

jonny_eh 8y ago
This must be against some kind of law, I'm not sure which though.
- cyphar 8y ago
  You could argue it's charity fraud, though the "intended" target isn't being represented as a charity they are being given donations (so "charity donation fraud", I guess). But it's likely some flavour of fraud.
- dictum 8y ago
  IA-definitely-NAL, but I can't see a way that opt-out can be legal here. Maybe the legal defense applies the same logic of consent in third-party tracking (third-party provides the service in behalf of the first-party, to whose terms you agreed by using its service. Even that may clash with laws like GDPR): Brave, third-party, is providing a service to the first-party – the browser's user – who contracted it as a way to provide a best-attempt donation for the creator. (If it's not obvious, I'm not privy to the details AND US federal and states' law) The only legal way I can see to do what Brave currently does is to spam the hell out of creators (ah, growth hacking) when someone attempts a donation, but only take the money after the creator signs up.
  - erikpukinskis 8y ago
    Well, how about this... I'll send you $20, if you agree to try to get $15 to the XKCD guy somehow. If you accept this deal, have you broken the law?

russdpale 8y ago

I 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 record, and of you are free to send me money in any which way you can, I even accept trained pigeon courier!

magissima 8y ago
The problem isn't that people are trying to give him money, it's that Brave is asking people for that money on his behalf, trying to give it to him, and then not returning it when he turns it down.
detaro 8y ago
> It's not like the browser is setting up a crowd funding page for you Isn't it pretty much like this? How many people would use some other way of giving a creator money if they knew that the creator isn't actually signed up for Brave's thing and they're creating additional work for them, or that the money might even be distributed to others at some point? EDIT: some screenshots: https://twitter.com/ummjackson/status/1076221401353207808 https://twitter.com/ummjackson/status/1076221401353207808 - zero indication that's not going directly to the creator
ubernostrum 8y ago
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.

raverbashing 8y ago

Given that some people will give money to any basic bitcoin scam in twitter, I'm not surprised But yeah, the whole situation is ridiculous, might be grounds for a nice lawsuit.

matt4077 8y ago

“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 selling clickstreams to the highest bidder.

brandnewlow 8y ago
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/ https://brave.com/rewards-update/

davidgerard 8y ago

If anyone's wondering what got Tom Scott so upset, it was probably this page in the UI flow: https://twitter.com/JTremback/status/1076213808706641925 https://twitter.com/JTremback/status/1076213808706641925

russley 8y ago
I think this is also a good representation of why its quite misleading: https://twitter.com/ummjackson/status/1076218351486087168 https://twitter.com/ummjackson/status/1076218351486087168

jacques_chester 8y ago

> 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, congratulations, you are probably a trustee. Why does this matter? Because trusteeship comes with a fiduciary duty. Fiduciary duty is a heavy burden. If it's applied to Brave it will create merry havoc: a pile of money that they cannot touch, under any circumstances. A pile of money that they must return, if it cannot be forwarded to the intended recipient. A pile of money that cannot be mixed with anything else in any way. The requirement to put the interests of the beneficiary ahead of their own. And on and on. It's an attempt to be clever at marketing, to create an incentive to sign up. But as a legal situation it's a swamp full of unstable turd grenades. ... of course, I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice. Maybe Brave found a friendly jurisdiction or a quirk in trusts law that they can squeeze through. But given the history of startups wishing that law doesn't real, I kinda doubt it.

jacques_chester 8y ago
By way of disclaimer, I've watched this segment for years because I've sometimes intended to enter it myself on a similar-but-not-identical business model. But being aware of the concept of a trust, I've avoided this idea entirely and watched previous failed attempts (eg Readability) with great interest.
jacques_chester 8y ago
Bonus round: https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1076198964607610880 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.

woah 8y ago

Venmo has been doing this forever: https://help.venmo.com/hc/en-us/articles/217532047-I-paid-a-New-User- https://help.venmo.com/hc/en-us/articles/217532047-I-paid-a-...

ryanlol 8y ago
Venmo lets you easily recover the money though, and probably automatically returns it after a while. Paypal does the same, and automatically returns the money to the sender if it's not claimed for a while.

nikisweeting 8y ago

This is the same growing pain that all the Git tip services went through. First, they accepted tips on behalf of repo maintainers on Github with the intention of letting those maintainers collect their tips later, then after a huge backlash they made it opt-in. This cycle will repeat for any service that allows a platform to collect payments on behalf of users without asking the recipients for consent in advance.

smsm42 8y ago

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?

CryptoPunk 8y ago
I think you earn BAT for browing while ads are turned on.
jetzzz 8y ago
It is a token issued on Ethereum blockchain and is traded on many exchanges. So yes, you can buy and sell them. Your 60 BAT are worth $8. https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/basic-attention-token/ https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/basic-attention-token/

dkhenry 8y ago

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.

scarejunba 8y ago
It’s no surprise that you’d ignore blatant copyright violation, misrepresentation, and abuse of personal data when you’re a fan of the project.
- dkhenry 8y ago
  Except its none of those things. The courts have held that not subjecting yourself to advertisements is covered under the "Fair Use Doctrine". This is why Ad Blockers, Tracking blockers, or both are not only legal, but built into every single major computing platform. This is now taking that concept and allowing me to pay for things I like. I would love to hear how you think Ad Blocking is blatant copyright violation, or how linking to content on the internet is misrepresentation.
  - scarejunba 8y ago
    I think ad blocking is fine. I don’t think you get to copy someone’s photo of themself and distribute it on your platform without asking them first.
    - dkhenry 8y ago

_eht 8y ago

Stop you're crashing my BAT investments! /s https://screenshots.firefox.com/tqACbxJj731kH7Ri/pro.coinbase.com https://screenshots.firefox.com/tqACbxJj731kH7Ri/pro.coinbas...

GreaterFool 8y ago

It does indeed sound like a mess. Keybase had a better idea: tie various identities to something stronger (private key). That way you can say: I'm X on reddit, Y on HN, Z on YouTube, etc. I think Brave could follow the same model, just make it seamless (or partner with Keybase). You could take it further. Why one and not multiple owners? Imagine you have a handle H on HN and then that handle publishes 5 messages of "My public key is XYZ". Then if someone were to donate to H through the system you could split it between participants. And you could run with that! Why even split if you could build some crypto system of control on top of that through smart contracts that lets you basically manage a small organization.

imustbeevil 8y ago

To anyone who has mistakenly "donated" to someone through this service, here's a link to the FTC complaint assistant for reporting fraud, namely "Pretending to be a representative or employee of a business". You don't have to be a lawyer to let the FTC decide whether this is misleading marketing or not. I honestly like the BAT idea. This is not the way to implement it, and based on the responses from Eich on twitter, and the representative in this thread, it seems like they aren't going to willingly change their scheme. https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/ https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/

isoskeles 8y ago

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 that there should be a feature to opt-out, or there should be a way to receive your funds automatically (I'm surprised and don't 100% believe that there is not). But the complaints and arguments saying this is "fraud" seem to be in bad faith. There's no evidence that these donations are completely irretrievable from the creators they were intended to go toward. Stop emotionally throwing around the word "fraud" as if there's criminal intent here for Brave to keep every penny of donations, zero intent to ever make that money available to the intended recipients.

Traster 8y ago
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 behaviour here is identical to someone committing identity theft.
- isoskeles 8y ago
  > identical to someone committing identity theft I don't fully understand what you mean here. Are they attempting to take out loans or credit cards for their own use with this person's information, resulting in potentially ruinous consequences for this person's credit? Rhetorical question in that case, but really, I'd like to understand what you mean. Is it in reference to your first sentence? My assumption is that people using the Brave browser or extension (I don't know how it works) would see these donation solicitations on every blog and understand that they're (Brave) collecting donations on behalf of just about anyone, not some specific person they are pretending to be, and not in any sense where these people are opting in to their platform one-at-a-time.

Tsubasachan 8y ago

Why are we rewarding the current way internet advertising works? Host your own ads and I won't block them. Until then F off.

detaro 8y ago
How is a tipping function "rewarding the current way internet advertising works"?

hollasch 8y ago

My basic objection to the "opt-out" scheme is that my browser is effectively acting as a man-in-the-middle agent, confusing both the reader and the author, and co-opting any existing compensation or donation procedure. For example, consider http://www.vim.org http://www.vim.org, which hosts the text editor Vim. The author, Bram Moolenaar, makes this editor freely-available, and asks that any donations be directed to ICCF Holand, a charity that serves the Kibaale Children's Center in Uganda. The Brave browser, as it stands now, inserts itself in the middle of this established reader/contributor relationship and now claims that it'll take your donations and administer them on Bram's behalf. The user who falls for this scheme then sees what appears to be _additional_ requests for donations (the _actual_ request). _At a minimum_, this inserted message sows confusion where there once was none. In the worst case, money that would have gone to the ICCF is now held in escrow by Brave, and may or may not be delivered, and if so, will go to Bram directly rather than to the charity he hopes to support. This is just one example of how the browser intercepting and modifying what you see is a truly bad design (intentional or not).

sonicdream 8y ago
Bad example. The purpose of the BAT token is for ads and tipping, not for donations. Hence the name, Basic Attention Token.
- hollasch 8y ago
  I use the Vim browser, and I want to support the project. Let me just grab the manual to gain a clear understanding of the terms and definitions the browser requires me to understand before I render said support according to the protocol we (reader and author) now find ourselves subject to. Oh Brave new world …
- sftwds 8y ago
  What is the difference between a “tip” and a “donation”?
brandnewlow 8y ago
Thanks for laying this out. Due to great posts like this and many others in this thread and on Twitter our eng. team is pushing up a bunch of changes tomorrow. You can read about them here: https://brave.com/rewards-update/ https://brave.com/rewards-update/ The bottom line is that it will be much much much clearer that unverified creators are not participating in Brave Rewards and what happens to any BAT tips a user tries to send to one. We'll also not be using any creative assets at all from unverified creators like their Youtube images. In the post we also commit to looking into whether to block attempts to tip unverified creators altogether.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

stevenicr 8y ago

Is this de-platform proof? eg, if <insert-controversial-site-or-person> - and they got lots of complaints for triggering <whatever-major-taboo-thing> - can the payments to gab,storm,badguy,badgirl,camgirl etc get stopped from brave or get brave stopped from taking payments all together from higher up the chain or whatever?

elwell 8y ago

Instead of taking donations for other people, we here at ClearCoin replace all the ads you see with ads from our network that reward the user with our crypto token, and content creators can opt-in to share in the profit. Chrome Extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/clearcoin-the-ad-blocker/benncgglohdbeapbakcebdobkdbkdcba https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/clearcoin-the-ad-b...

omnimus 8y ago
How is that different from Brave/BAT?
- elwell 8y ago
  I don't think Brave has ad replacement live yet. The main difference is that you don't have to change browsers, just install an extension.

nyrosis 8y ago

No way is this going to fly under GDPR. Whatever genius had this idea needs to be held accountable legally for a massive breach of trust. Opt out isn't going to fly in 2018. Collecting money on the behalf of individuals is fine IF they opt in to the service. I imagine this service would have exploded in popularity and been perfectly legal if it was opt in but now.. Yeah.. heads should roll.

untangle 8y ago

Brave jumped the shark when they chose to prioritize an ICO and "revolutionize ads" over core browser functionality. They are now ironically spinning their own flavor of making the user the product. Just say no. Uninstall.

lolc 8y ago

Hey guys I'm collecting donations for the Brave Browser to implement the BAT scheme responsibly. We've discovered some issues with it and think it needs overhauling. Please donate to Standard Chartered Bank, Frankfurt, Germany; SWIFT/BIC Code: SCBLDEFX IBAN: DE67512305000500136802 Beneficiary Name: SVB-Mozilla Foundation You're helping a great project that way! (Note: You might not actually be donating to the Brave Browser directly and some of the funds may go to other projects.)