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The mistake was getting caught? Eich’s initial response was that was intentional and ethical. Until it went viral and his view evolved. Granted, I’m not too kee
by dahdum 4y ago
The mistake was getting caught? Eich’s initial response was that was intentional and ethical. Until it went viral and his view evolved. Granted, I’m not too keen to give him or Brave much benefit of doubt.
https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1269289242905042944 https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1269289242905042944
- dools 4y agoDoesn’t look like it was a privacy problem nor does it look like he claimed it was “by mistake”. Seems perfectly reasonable to me and everyone over reacted so they took it off.
- chaps 4y agoCan you explain how it's not a privacy problem?
- spoiler 4y agoThey included Brave's affiliate ID, not the users. I think. So, it didn't reveal anything "new' (for fingerprinting) or anything that can identify the user.
- hackernewds 4y agoSeems like they wanted to hold the data for themselves and backtracked because " Sorry we got caught"
- joshuaissac 4y ago> Seems like they wanted to hold the data for themselves Hold what data? The affiliate ID?
- soundnote 4y agoBrave could know the user... used Brave?
- brigandish 4y agoHe did say it was a mistake later[0]: > 1/ We made a mistake, we're correcting [0] https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1269313200127795201 https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1269313200127795201
- MrOwnPut 4y agoIf you read the full thing he's saying the autocomplete should not have filled in a referral code, only typing in the full address. It's the same thing as when FireFox adds it's referral code when going to Google Search, I believe that's most of their revenue... TLDR: the bug was the referral code was being added in the autocomplete. It should have only been added to the exact affiliate address, such as "binance.us".
- NayamAmarshe 4y agoExactly, it was a bug that was fixed in a single day after release, years ago! Some are still mad at Brave releasing a bug, as if other browser are flawless.
- dools 4y agoThe distinction I was making here was "by mistake" versus "done on purpose but acknowledging it was either done poorly or the wrong thing to do". OP said "Mistake was getting caught" which to me implies that he is using the word "mistake" to reduce accountability rather than increase it. I think it's the latter: he's using the word "mistake" to take responsibility for having made a decision his users disagree with (whether or not it's objectively bad, I think is a moot point given the backlash from users). Same clarification he makes in this tweet: "I think you used "mistake" where you meant "accident". I never said it was accidental. We were treating it like a search query (which all big browsers do tag with an affiliate id to get paid from by the search provider). But a valid domain name is not a search query. Fixing." https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1269421487011713030?s=20 https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1269421487011713030?s...
- matthew-wegner 4y agoBased on that thread, and some long-ago history with affiliate marketing, I would bet a small sum that they're still doing similar today. They're just hiding it better.
- majormajor 4y agoSeems like it was just indicating "our autocorrect is how the user got here" and there are certainly a LOT of other ways a browser could communicate that far, far more sneakily.
- charrondev 4y agoIsn’t that what the the referrer header is for?
- MrOwnPut 4y agoThe referrer header is for site to site, not directly from browser. The browser injecting a referrer header seems less transparent than it being in the link, no?