4 ms·

then what about this?: > On 6 June 2020, a Twitter user pointed out that Brave inserts affiliate referral codes when users type a URL of Binance into the addre

then what about this?: > On 6 June 2020, a Twitter user pointed out that Brave inserts affiliate referral codes when users type a URL of Binance into the address bar, which earns Brave money. Further research revealed that Brave redirects the URLs of other cryptocurrency exchange websites, too. In response to the backlash from the users, Brave's CEO apologized and called it a "mistake" and said "we're correcting". Seems intentional... Don't insult our intelligence and tell us that this was an "accident" or "unintended mistaken".

jonathansampson 5y ago
That was addressed in my comment (the one you're responding to) with this link: https://brave.com/referral-codes-in-suggested-sites/ https://brave.com/referral-codes-in-suggested-sites/. Briefly, we added a way for users to support Brave without having to make financial contributions. They could simply opt to use one of our affiliate codes for a few poplar sites/services. We added a feature to Brave which responded to user search input, and offered affiliate links for relevant results. You can see a screenshot of what that looked like at https://brave.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/image3.png https://brave.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/image3.png. This didn't involve any user data, didn't rewrite links on pages, didn't redirect network requests, or touch the area of privacy/security in any way. Seemed like a good idea :) When the feature actually launched, users quickly realized that the logic was handling fully qualified URLs in additional to search input. You can see a screenshot of that at https://brave.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/image2-1.png https://brave.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/image2-1.png. This was the mistake that needed to be corrected. I hope that helps clarify things a little. Again, there was no impact to user data or privacy, and Brave made $0 on this feature. Thankfully, our community is attentive, and yields prompt feedback when mistakes are made. Fortunately we were able to resolve the issue quickly and get a fix out to users.
- bagacrap 5y ago
  So "can't be evil" then "whoops, that bit of evil was an honest mistake".

jonathansampson 5y ago

That was addressed in my comment (the one you're responding to) with this link: https://brave.com/referral-codes-in-suggested-sites/ https://brave.com/referral-codes-in-suggested-sites/. Briefly, we added a way for users to support Brave without having to make financial contributions. They could simply opt to use one of our affiliate codes for a few poplar sites/services. We added a feature to Brave which responded to user search input, and offered affiliate links for relevant results. You can see a screenshot of what that looked like at https://brave.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/image3.png https://brave.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/image3.png. This didn't involve any user data, didn't rewrite links on pages, didn't redirect network requests, or touch the area of privacy/security in any way. Seemed like a good idea :) When the feature actually launched, users quickly realized that the logic was handling fully qualified URLs in additional to search input. You can see a screenshot of that at https://brave.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/image2-1.png https://brave.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/image2-1.png. This was the mistake that needed to be corrected. I hope that helps clarify things a little. Again, there was no impact to user data or privacy, and Brave made $0 on this feature. Thankfully, our community is attentive, and yields prompt feedback when mistakes are made. Fortunately we were able to resolve the issue quickly and get a fix out to users.

bagacrap 5y ago
So "can't be evil" then "whoops, that bit of evil was an honest mistake".