6 ms·

This reads like bad content marketing. Why am I being asked to tweet every quick fact? Why do I need to download a PDF to read what is ‘Inside the Black Box’? I

by tqi 7y ago

This reads like bad content marketing. Why am I being asked to tweet every quick fact? Why do I need to download a PDF to read what is ‘Inside the Black Box’? Is this a privacy/data use complaint or an antitrust complaint?

kleiba 7y ago
Interesting. To me, it didn't feel like I was asked to tweet these quick facts, it felt more like I was given the option for my convenience. I chose to ignore it, however, I understand that they want to encourage people to get exposure.
- pdpi 7y ago
  It's somewhat disingenuous to say that repeatedly "giving me the option for my convenience" is anything other than pushing me to take action.
  - kleiba 7y ago
    That might then lie in the eye of the beholder - I certainly didn't feel like being pushed or pressured at all but naturally your mileage might vary.
    - venatiodecorus 7y ago
      i'd bet you're in the minority there. anyone could just copy and paste the text to tweet it if they wanted to. multiple "calls-to-action" are definitely trying to drive user behavior
    - _jal 7y ago
      It might. (Buy now!) But I think (Buy now!) one can certainly (Buy now!) feel (Buy now!) differently. (Buy now!)
  - rmrfstar 7y ago
    Transparently soliciting a specific desired behavior doesn't fall within the traditional definition of disingenuous. Does it bother you that a commercial entity with "a dog in the fight" is asking you to take action on its behalf?
    - rmrfstar 7y ago
      I am new to HN. If you down-vote me, please let me know why. I'd like to understand what drives decisions around these parts.
      - bryanrasmussen 7y ago
        I just upvoted you as I didn't see a problem with what you said, but asking people to tell you why they downvoted around here seems a losing battle. I've asked often enough without response.
        cyphar 7y ago
        The reason you won't get a response to such questions (and follow-up comments about downvotes get flagged and downvoted) is because discussion of voting is against the HN Guidelines[1]: > Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - lmkg 7y ago
      The Greek Data Protection Authority provided some guidance on online tracking last month. In particular, the following was called out explicitly as a non-compliant practice: > In the event of rejecting trackers, the user is constantly invited to make a new choice through a pop-up window, while the same does not apply if the user accepts trackers, in which case their choice is maintained for a longer period. https://iapp.org/resources/article/cookie-guidance-from-greece/ https://iapp.org/resources/article/cookie-guidance-from-gree... That's not necessarily same context, but the main point still stands: By law, if you're invoking "consent" as the legal basis for collecting and processing data, consent must be freely given and as easy to withdraw as to provide. Provoking people to change their mind from "no" to "yes" but not the opposite is not considered to be freely-given.
kasey_junk 7y ago
It _is_ content marketing. Brave is in direct competition with Google for both browser eyeballs and ad revenue. That doesn’t make it wrong but you are definitely seeing a marketing push.
jariel 7y ago
"Why do I need to download a PDF to read what is ‘Inside the Black Box’? This is a little disingenuous to the point of almost gaslighting. You need to 'click on a PDF' because it's 60 full pages of dense data in a spreadsheet. It's 100% reasonable to provide a link to that data, it's exactly the right thing to do. It's also fully reasonable to provide links to tweeting about specific issues, that's how information is shared in 2020. Though on a level it's 'marketing' - the claims are that Google is in existential violation the law, this is not Walmart proclaiming they have 'lower prices and better service than Target'.
- wizzwizz4 7y ago
  I know more people who use Mastodon than Twitter, and “only” a few hundred thousand people are really active on Mastodon.
  - jariel 7y ago
    So that's great, but there are a Billion people on Twitter, it's used universally worldwide, which is why they use it. It 'won't work' for me because I hate twitter and don't use it, it 'won't work for you' because you use Mastodon, but that's fine, 'Twitter' is the ideal, broadly convenient choice.
- tqi 7y ago
  "Gaslighting"? I opened the PDF. If by "dense data in a spreadsheet" you mean rows like the very first one: Category: Accounting Purported processing purpose: “purposes such as accounting...” Other discoverable processing purposes: “…such as…” is vague language that may conflate or omit many distinct processing purposes. Data collected: BLANK Data shared externally: BLANK Explanation and examples: For example, when you purchase apps from the Play Store or products from the Google Store. Purported legal basis: Unknown Give me a break, the legal reason in the first column. To me obvious reason this is a 60 page PDF is because they hope people don't open it and discover that they are full of shit.
  - lmkg 7y ago
amelius 7y ago
When you're fighting against a marketing giant, don't you think that a little bit of marketing is justified?
drusepth 7y ago
I clicked the link and closed the tab the second I saw it was from Brave. They put out an anti-Google piece pretty much every other week, and they rarely have any substance. This one might (someone who isn't jaded by their track record can probably tell you in the comments here), but I'd be surprised. They just want you to use their browser instead of Chrome's, and constant attacks on Google/Chrome is their primary marketing strategy (35 mentions of Brave on-page, Brave branding everywhere, giant "Download Brave" button at the end of the page, etc).
- ehsankia 7y ago
  The irony is that their entire business would not exist if it wasn't for Google developing and open sourcing Chromium, yet they seem hell-bent on destroying the very hand that feeds them.
  - jjeaff 7y ago
    Isn't Firefox also open source? Google isn't the hand that feeds them because of chromium. It's the hand that feeds them because of Google's privacy track record. If they weren't so invasive, then there would be no reason for brave to exist.
    - ehsankia 7y ago
      Well then why didn't they use Firefox as their base?

by tqi 7y ago

kleiba 7y ago

Interesting. To me, it didn't feel like I was asked to tweet these quick facts, it felt more like I was given the option for my convenience. I chose to ignore it, however, I understand that they want to encourage people to get exposure.

pdpi 7y ago
It's somewhat disingenuous to say that repeatedly "giving me the option for my convenience" is anything other than pushing me to take action.
- kleiba 7y ago
  That might then lie in the eye of the beholder - I certainly didn't feel like being pushed or pressured at all but naturally your mileage might vary.
  - venatiodecorus 7y ago
    i'd bet you're in the minority there. anyone could just copy and paste the text to tweet it if they wanted to. multiple "calls-to-action" are definitely trying to drive user behavior
  - _jal 7y ago
    It might. (Buy now!) But I think (Buy now!) one can certainly (Buy now!) feel (Buy now!) differently. (Buy now!)
- rmrfstar 7y ago
  Transparently soliciting a specific desired behavior doesn't fall within the traditional definition of disingenuous. Does it bother you that a commercial entity with "a dog in the fight" is asking you to take action on its behalf?
  - rmrfstar 7y ago
    I am new to HN. If you down-vote me, please let me know why. I'd like to understand what drives decisions around these parts.
    - bryanrasmussen 7y ago
      I just upvoted you as I didn't see a problem with what you said, but asking people to tell you why they downvoted around here seems a losing battle. I've asked often enough without response.
      - cyphar 7y ago
        The reason you won't get a response to such questions (and follow-up comments about downvotes get flagged and downvoted) is because discussion of voting is against the HN Guidelines[1]: > Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - lmkg 7y ago
    The Greek Data Protection Authority provided some guidance on online tracking last month. In particular, the following was called out explicitly as a non-compliant practice: > In the event of rejecting trackers, the user is constantly invited to make a new choice through a pop-up window, while the same does not apply if the user accepts trackers, in which case their choice is maintained for a longer period. https://iapp.org/resources/article/cookie-guidance-from-greece/ https://iapp.org/resources/article/cookie-guidance-from-gree... That's not necessarily same context, but the main point still stands: By law, if you're invoking "consent" as the legal basis for collecting and processing data, consent must be freely given and as easy to withdraw as to provide. Provoking people to change their mind from "no" to "yes" but not the opposite is not considered to be freely-given.

kasey_junk 7y ago

It _is_ content marketing. Brave is in direct competition with Google for both browser eyeballs and ad revenue. That doesn’t make it wrong but you are definitely seeing a marketing push.

jariel 7y ago

"Why do I need to download a PDF to read what is ‘Inside the Black Box’? This is a little disingenuous to the point of almost gaslighting. You need to 'click on a PDF' because it's 60 full pages of dense data in a spreadsheet. It's 100% reasonable to provide a link to that data, it's exactly the right thing to do. It's also fully reasonable to provide links to tweeting about specific issues, that's how information is shared in 2020. Though on a level it's 'marketing' - the claims are that Google is in existential violation the law, this is not Walmart proclaiming they have 'lower prices and better service than Target'.

wizzwizz4 7y ago
I know more people who use Mastodon than Twitter, and “only” a few hundred thousand people are really active on Mastodon.
- jariel 7y ago
  So that's great, but there are a Billion people on Twitter, it's used universally worldwide, which is why they use it. It 'won't work' for me because I hate twitter and don't use it, it 'won't work for you' because you use Mastodon, but that's fine, 'Twitter' is the ideal, broadly convenient choice.
tqi 7y ago
"Gaslighting"? I opened the PDF. If by "dense data in a spreadsheet" you mean rows like the very first one: Category: Accounting Purported processing purpose: “purposes such as accounting...” Other discoverable processing purposes: “…such as…” is vague language that may conflate or omit many distinct processing purposes. Data collected: BLANK Data shared externally: BLANK Explanation and examples: For example, when you purchase apps from the Play Store or products from the Google Store. Purported legal basis: Unknown Give me a break, the legal reason in the first column. To me obvious reason this is a 60 page PDF is because they hope people don't open it and discover that they are full of shit.
- lmkg 7y ago

amelius 7y ago

When you're fighting against a marketing giant, don't you think that a little bit of marketing is justified?

drusepth 7y ago

I clicked the link and closed the tab the second I saw it was from Brave. They put out an anti-Google piece pretty much every other week, and they rarely have any substance. This one might (someone who isn't jaded by their track record can probably tell you in the comments here), but I'd be surprised. They just want you to use their browser instead of Chrome's, and constant attacks on Google/Chrome is their primary marketing strategy (35 mentions of Brave on-page, Brave branding everywhere, giant "Download Brave" button at the end of the page, etc).

ehsankia 7y ago
The irony is that their entire business would not exist if it wasn't for Google developing and open sourcing Chromium, yet they seem hell-bent on destroying the very hand that feeds them.
- jjeaff 7y ago
  Isn't Firefox also open source? Google isn't the hand that feeds them because of chromium. It's the hand that feeds them because of Google's privacy track record. If they weren't so invasive, then there would be no reason for brave to exist.
  - ehsankia 7y ago
    Well then why didn't they use Firefox as their base?