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Topic: Brave browser CEO apologizes for automatically adding affiliate links to cryptoc (Read 285 times)

legendary
Activity: 2772
Merit: 1028
Duelbits.com
At least, they understood the mistake and fixed it with hearing the community. I still use the Brave browser instead of ram killer Chrome for daily web browsing.
For those complain about the payment and Brave rewards, just remember the Brave rewards program is for more profitable for authors. The big part of the pool goes to the site owners and authors, the browser uses should keep using Brave due to the privacy concerns on alternative browsers. 
full member
Activity: 1848
Merit: 158
"The most free browser", yeah. Thats why i prefer firefox

This is why I never tried brave, Firefox is a solution to the problem that has been around for so many years and proved to work well. Why would I need browser-level adblocking if extensions work just fine? And things like blocking ads with router are even better. And earning with BAT isn't worth the inherent risk of trusting a new company with all your online activity.

I tried brave on the other hand just to see how much I will earn from using this "free" browser. However, I stopped using it because I noticed you will earn very little amount for months of using it. Maybe it depends on my internet activity but I find it not really significant in my day to day internet activities. And now, having this issue? What other issues they will admit in the future?
legendary
Activity: 3024
Merit: 2148
"The most free browser", yeah. Thats why i prefer firefox

This is why I never tried brave, Firefox is a solution to the problem that has been around for so many years and proved to work well. Why would I need browser-level adblocking if extensions work just fine? And things like blocking ads with router are even better. And earning with BAT isn't worth the inherent risk of trusting a new company with all your online activity.
legendary
Activity: 2884
Merit: 1117
Honestly I feel like this was not the CEO who did this but someone in the company who just wanted to make a bit of profit from something like this and took advantage. When CEO found out, he probably fired the employee, put in charges, and removed that code. So, I can't really say it is easy to forgive Brave for this but I can see how they could be the victims as well since they might have lost both profits but also credibility as well.

However if it was something done with the knowledge of the CEO, that is quite scary, no company who is making enough profits should be looking to make something like this, it not only stops your income stream but it also prevents you get a proper one in the future as well, it just hurts you as a whole and could cause you to completely go bankrupt for failure.
hero member
Activity: 2128
Merit: 530
PredX - AI-Powered Prediction Market
Brave team mess up, this just show that it is all about money to all these developers, it is not a mistake because their referrer link was not just auto complete for Binance but for most of these exchanges. It won't have generate this much heat if the team has been open about it because most people do it
member
Activity: 686
Merit: 35
I really like brave browser, everything about the browser is to my satisfaction but after reading the thread about the referral link I was a bit disappointed that they could do such a thing, deceiving that users in such manner was very unprofessional, this is supposed to be a privacy browser but even them are taking advantage of users, at least now they realize their mistakes and apologize.
full member
Activity: 715
Merit: 101
"The most free browser", yeah. Thats why i prefer firefox
sr. member
Activity: 1063
Merit: 253
Sovryn - Brings DeFi to Bitcoin
an apology will do nothing anyway, it doesn't redo the fact that privacy in this browser is just empty talk. they have great potential but unfortunately they are destroyed by this one act, some people might be ignorant and keep using this browser but not for me anymore. browser is free and switching between browser is as easy as clicking "import" in the setting and I will surely do that.
member
Activity: 1008
Merit: 12
SAPG Pre-Sale Live on Uniswap!
It could have been that some developer or some of the employee of the brave network have took advantage of the platform and tried to embed his/her referral links, we know greed is everywhere and it can come in any form but now if brave is officially accepting it and they have announced to make the browser link free then i think there is no need to create an issue just give them a chance for correction.
sr. member
Activity: 1442
Merit: 265
This is the type of act that causes everyone outside of this community to judge that everything in the cryptospace is a scam. This is very embarassing because it was reported by a mainstream website and a very deceiving act from a for privacy browser.


Brendan Eich, founder of Brave

Brave, the open-source browser designed to prioritize privacy by blocking third-party ads and trackers, is facing criticism from users for redirecting URLs from cryptocurrency companies to affiliate links that Brave profits from, Decrypt reported.

A Twitter user spotted the redirect when he typed “binance.us” into the Brave search bar, and the browser autocompleted it to “binance.us/en?ref=35089877.” Both URLs go to the same page, but the affiliate link at the end can be used to track users and generate income. Many websites, including Vox Media and The Verge, use affiliate links, but most are transparent about doing so.


Read in full https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/8/21283769/brave-browser-affiliate-links-crypto-privacy-ceo-apology
Although almost all of the media outlets dot hat but brave being a browser should not have done that i mean it is just a very big platform and it has its ad ecosystem and revenue generation so why would they even be looking to capture affiliate income which would be pennies considering the scope of brave ecosystem itself, anyways we should give them the chance to correct themselves now.
legendary
Activity: 3668
Merit: 6382
Looking for campaign manager? Contact icopress!
theverge.com/2020/6/8/

As you can see from what I've kept from the post, this is one month old news. This came at very few days after the ref links "feature" blew up in their face.
Indeed, many will keep Brave for the few cents they may be earning. For many others it was an obvious next step after KYC in a privacy browser.

Since I was not into BAT this was for me the point I've lost confidence in them and apologies won't fix that. So for me it was an eye opener.
Then I've researched for something better than Chrome and Brave and returned to good old Firefox, which is better and safer than the two and it's more robust, better made and doesn't lack important features like Brave does.
hero member
Activity: 2646
Merit: 686
This is the type of act that causes everyone outside of this community to judge that everything in the cryptospace is a scam. This is very embarassing because it was reported by a mainstream website and a very deceiving act from a for privacy browser.


Brendan Eich, founder of Brave

Brave, the open-source browser designed to prioritize privacy by blocking third-party ads and trackers, is facing criticism from users for redirecting URLs from cryptocurrency companies to affiliate links that Brave profits from, Decrypt reported.

A Twitter user spotted the redirect when he typed “binance.us” into the Brave search bar, and the browser autocompleted it to “binance.us/en?ref=35089877.” Both URLs go to the same page, but the affiliate link at the end can be used to track users and generate income. Many websites, including Vox Media and The Verge, use affiliate links, but most are transparent about doing so.


Read in full https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/8/21283769/brave-browser-affiliate-links-crypto-privacy-ceo-apology

@bbc.reporter this was reported on another forum a while ago, and that’s an seo forum and you’ll be surprised to know that most of the guys were happy to allow Brave browser to earn commissions from them, because it gives them more privacy and security than google. Also if you consider this scam then what will you say about google who broke it’s own promise of never showing ads on homepage?, or the fact that an extension which was downloaded 32 million times on google stole people’s data.

Sources:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/oct/24/google-breaks-promise-banner-ads-search-results

https://wccftech.com/google-chrome-extensions-with-32-million-downloads-found-to-be-stealing-user-data/

https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/4/18249623/brave-browser-choice-chrome-vivaldi-replacement-chromium
hero member
Activity: 2870
Merit: 594
Damage has been done already, I don't know what kind of publicity that Brave needs to patch up things with crypto community with this mishaps, and it's really embarrassing and I'm sure they have lost some customers here. I also doubt that they can be forgotten by the community, and as much we appreciate their admittance for their mistakes, they look very suspicious already and it could defeat their purpose to compete with Google, unfortunately.
full member
Activity: 1624
Merit: 163
There isn't really anything malicious here in the article though, it doesn't categorized cryptocurrency as evil either. But it was really huge to see that a browser that blocks ads and prevent tracks are themselves putting ads and tracking users using an affiliate link. Maybe it wasn't suppose to work that way? maybe there was a bug in their code?

You should read the article. The development team of Brave placed their affiliate link to profit from their users without informing them. This is a behavior similar to scammers.

I did read the article. You probably did not understand but my point was pertaining to the article, that the article didn't wrote this in a malicious way and they also didn't portray Bitcoin as bad but it was the browser who did.
You should keep in mind that the browser itself is meant to generate revenue for the people or company behind Brave. There was no bug and they originally intended to put their referral link in the code without the user's knowledge. They were simply caught and heavily criticized. So the only smart way  for them to get out of that mess is to apologize.

The writer of that article doesn't have to present what happened in malicious way. His job is to present the fact that Brave injected ref links to profit from their unsuspecting users. That supports bbc.reporter's statement "This is the type of act that causes everyone outside of this community to judge that everything in the cryptospace is a scam".

I know. I did not say that this incident of the Brave Browser doesn't make support that statement "This is the type of act that causes everyone outside of this community to judge that everything in the cryptospace is a scam". I only said that the article or the article writer did not portray cryptocurrency as bad or malicious, they only reported something that the Brave Browser did.

I do not support Brave Browser for what they did and it is indeed a bad move for them to do this.
legendary
Activity: 2044
Merit: 1018
Not your keys, not your coins!
Apology?

Brave browser grows very fast and caught attention of community because many people think Brave browser operates more smoothly and lighter than Chrome browser. They also believe Brave browser can give them private browsing. After many months of continuous growth, Brave browswer shows it fails to provide and maintain private browsing for users.

The latest shady technical action to automatically and arbitrarily add affiliate links are unacceptable. It seriously destroys the reputation and reliability of Brave browser further and faster. I won't use Brave browswer in the future and don't care what their CEO talks and whatsoever technical improvements will be made.
sr. member
Activity: 1554
Merit: 413
There isn't really anything malicious here in the article though, it doesn't categorized cryptocurrency as evil either. But it was really huge to see that a browser that blocks ads and prevent tracks are themselves putting ads and tracking users using an affiliate link. Maybe it wasn't suppose to work that way? maybe there was a bug in their code?

You should read the article. The development team of Brave placed their affiliate link to profit from their users without informing them. This is a behavior similar to scammers.

I did read the article. You probably did not understand but my point was pertaining to the article, that the article didn't wrote this in a malicious way and they also didn't portray Bitcoin as bad but it was the browser who did.
You should keep in mind that the browser itself is meant to generate revenue for the people or company behind Brave. There was no bug and they originally intended to put their referral link in the code without the user's knowledge. They were simply caught and heavily criticized. So the only smart way  for them to get out of that mess is to apologize.

The writer of that article doesn't have to present what happened in malicious way. His job is to present the fact that Brave injected ref links to profit from their unsuspecting users. That supports bbc.reporter's statement "This is the type of act that causes everyone outside of this community to judge that everything in the cryptospace is a scam".
hero member
Activity: 1050
Merit: 501
I don't for one second think that it was a mistake or bug it was added for a reason to fatten their pockets using affiliate links. It was really unexpected from the company whose selling point was to block website trackers.
full member
Activity: 476
Merit: 103
homt.net
I don’t see it’s a big accuse some how the platform also needs to generate revenue . Brave is one of the best private browser also it is one of the recognised project in crypto space . If they don’t generate revenue from other resource finally it end upto selling to big companies then it will Be no more open source .
full member
Activity: 1624
Merit: 163
There isn't really anything malicious here in the article though, it doesn't categorized cryptocurrency as evil either. But it was really huge to see that a browser that blocks ads and prevent tracks are themselves putting ads and tracking users using an affiliate link. Maybe it wasn't suppose to work that way? maybe there was a bug in their code?

You should read the article. The development team of Brave placed their affiliate link to profit from their users without informing them. This is a behavior similar to scammers.

I did read the article. You probably did not understand but my point was pertaining to the article, that the article didn't wrote this in a malicious way and they also didn't portray Bitcoin as bad but it was the browser who did.
legendary
Activity: 3010
Merit: 1460
There isn't really anything malicious here in the article though, it doesn't categorized cryptocurrency as evil either. But it was really huge to see that a browser that blocks ads and prevent tracks are themselves putting ads and tracking users using an affiliate link. Maybe it wasn't suppose to work that way? maybe there was a bug in their code?

You should read the article. The development team of Brave placed their affiliate link to profit from their users without informing them. This is a behavior similar to scammers.
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