
Brave taking cryptocurrency donations “for me” without my consent - plusCubed
https://twitter.com/tomscott/status/1076160882873380870
======
egypturnash
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.

~~~
brandnewlow
I work at Brave on the business team. This is helpful feedback.

Brave is a startup with a small team earnestly building a new thing that
combines a browser with a tipping system, with creator tools, with ad
blocking... it's ambitious!

As it's a new thing, describing it can be messy sometimes. We're always
working to make our language better and clearer though. Thank you for letting
us know it fell short for you.

To address a point:

We know there's a lot of creators on a lot of platforms. At the moment, we've
built support for creator channels in the form of web sites, Youtube channels
and Twitch channels. When I joined this past summer I had the same reaction.
"What about Tumblr? What about Twitter?" Each new platform takes time to write
support for and we have a long list of features requests. We'll get there!

~~~
mistrial9
the statements from Brave people on this thread seem reasonable ; many
inflammatory comments here do not seem reasonable

~~~
donaltroddyn
I disagree completely. So far, both here and on Twitter, the core complaint,
that donations are solicited in the name of people who have no relationship
with Brave, and from whom Brave has no consent, has been completely ignored.

The fact is the original complainant, Tom Scott, and many others, find that
practice abhorrent, and the response so far has been deflection or vague
promises that the Brave team want to help content creators, whether they want
the "help" or not.

~~~
brandnewlow
We just posted up a list of changes going live tomorrow that hopefully address
all the concerns listed in this thread: [https://brave.com/rewards-
update/](https://brave.com/rewards-update/)

Thanks for your feedback.

------
callinyouin
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
This must be against some kind of law, I'm not sure which though.

~~~
pyb
Not at lawyer, but using a third party's persona to collect money (for
whatever purpose) sounds like a blatant breach of personality rights
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_rights](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_rights)

~~~
lalaithion
At the very least it should be a violation of trademark law.

(1) Any person who, on or in connection with any goods or services, or any
container for goods, uses in commerce any word, term, name, symbol, or device,
or any combination thereof, or any false designation of origin, false or
misleading description of fact, or false or misleading representation of fact,
which—

(A) is likely to cause confusion, or to cause mistake, or to deceive as to the
affiliation, connection, or association of such person with another person, or
as to the origin, sponsorship, or approval of his or her goods, services, or
commercial activities by another person, or (B) in commercial advertising or
promotion, misrepresents the nature, characteristics, qualities, or geographic
origin of his or her or another person’s goods, services, or commercial
activities,

shall be liable in a civil action by any person who believes that he or she is
or is likely to be damaged by such act.

------
hollasch
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).

~~~
brandnewlow
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.

------
aphextron
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
Honest question. Why not Firefox? What are your concerns with it?

~~~
aphextron
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.

~~~
gaadd33
Is Mozilla run that lean even with >$500M in revenue?

~~~
danso
The majority of that funding seems to come from royalties ($504M of $520M)
[0]. What would be the leaner way of collecting those royalties?

[0] [https://www.mozilla.org/en-
US/foundation/annualreport/2016/](https://www.mozilla.org/en-
US/foundation/annualreport/2016/)

------
jacques_chester
> _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
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.

------
plusCubed
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-
attentio...](https://basicattentiontoken.org/brave-expands-basic-attention-
token-platform-to-youtube)

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?

~~~
brandnewlow
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.

~~~
rchaud
Tom Scott did not explicitly sign up for this service. Brave is not even
telling users that Tom Scott is not signed up, and Brave has no automated way
of contacting him to let him know that someone donated. The system is
engineered to move the money towards Brave, with neither the benefactor nor
the beneficiary being aware of that. How is that ethical?

~~~
ObsoleteNerd
I was interested in Brave after hearing it mentioned here a fair bit, for
innovating new ways for creators to get paid... after this story though?
Knowing they effectively scam users out of money under the pretense of it
really being the creator? That's fraud as far as I'm concerned (maybe not
legally, but to me it's a con, and scummy).

Interest has dropped to 0, and they go to my shitlist with all the other
crytpo-scam stuff prevalent these days.

Edit: Now that I've seen the screenshots of just how blatantly Brave pretends
the creator has a profile and actively set this up, this is absolutely fraud.
From further down in the comments of OPs original link:
[https://twitter.com/ummjackson/status/1076221401353207808](https://twitter.com/ummjackson/status/1076221401353207808)

~~~
brandnewlow
We agree the UI in that screenshot tells the wrong story. It doesn't represent
what we're trying to do so we're shipping a bunch of changes tomorrow that we
hope will fix things: [https://brave.com/rewards-
update/](https://brave.com/rewards-update/)

We'd love another shot at winning your interest. Thanks for caring about
finding new ways to get creators paid.

------
SheinhardtWigCo
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
> How is that not fraud?

The answer appears to be "technically", and "sue if you think you're big
enough".

~~~
jblow
I would be interested in suing them if they have a page up for me. How do I
tell if they do?

~~~
ivank
It looks like an in-browser thing:

[https://ludios.org/tmp/jon_blow-fs8.png](https://ludios.org/tmp/jon_blow-
fs8.png)

[https://ludios.org/tmp/jon_blow2-fs8.png](https://ludios.org/tmp/jon_blow2-fs8.png)

~~~
brandnewlow
We're shipping changes tomorrow that will fix the problems with these overlays
to make it clear unverified creators are not part of Brave Rewards and won't
be receiving tips directly. You can read about them here:
[https://brave.com/rewards-update/](https://brave.com/rewards-update/)

------
imustbeevil
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/)

------
matt4077
“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
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
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
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)

------
nikisweeting
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.

------
isoskeles
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
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
> 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.

~~~
int_19h
The UX for donations does not say anything about "on behalf". Nor does it say
that the person has not requested that. Nor does it say that the money won't
actually go to that person unless and until they explicitly come and claim it.
Nor does it say that the person isn't even notified until the total is over
$100.

As far as consequences to the person - asking for donations in and of itself
affects one's reputation.

------
davidgerard
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
> 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
> 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
That's not how Western Union works. The recipient goes to WU and presents
matching ID.

~~~
shkkmo
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.

~~~
CryptoPunk
>>Western Union doesn't claim to be accepting donations on creators behalfs.

Strictly speaking, Brave is not doing that. The fact that the originator of
the solicitation is Brave, and that the potential end-recipient may not sign
up to receive the funds, is disclosed.

It's an escrow fund that would release the funds to a particular party should
they choose to claim it. That's how the contribution service is marketed.

------
joshuamorton
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)

------
davidgerard
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.

------
lolc
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.)

------
GreaterFool
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.

------
stevenicr
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?

------
smsm42
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?

~~~
jetzzz
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/)

------
_eht
Stop you're crashing my BAT investments! /s

[https://screenshots.firefox.com/tqACbxJj731kH7Ri/pro.coinbas...](https://screenshots.firefox.com/tqACbxJj731kH7Ri/pro.coinbase.com)

------
untangle
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.

------
elwell
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-b...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/clearcoin-the-ad-
blocker/benncgglohdbeapbakcebdobkdbkdcba)

~~~
omnimus
How is that different from Brave/BAT?

~~~
elwell
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.

------
raverbashing
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.

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

~~~
bpicolo
Yes. That's what it's referring to

~~~
chrisper
I see thanks. I guess it wasn't clear to me because I only use them on my
Android.

~~~
chrisper
Thanks for all the downvotes for a normal question, kind people.

------
lmcarreiro
People could do something similar for open source projects:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18736006](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18736006)

~~~
davidgerard
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)

------
russdpale
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!

~~~
detaro
> _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

------
Tsubasachan
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
How is a tipping function "rewarding the current way internet advertising
works"?

------
dkhenry
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
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
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
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
You mean like how if you google for Tom Scott[1] Google will pull the public
profile info for a number of platforms ( twitter, youtube, instagram,
wikipedia, and his own website ) and post it right there for you to read ?
That is how the internet works, Google does this while displaying ads and
tracking not only what you search, but what links you visit and then selling
that information to advertisers via their ad-sense platform. Tom will never
see any of that revenue. When I go visit Tom's content I get to say if he
would like he can take some of the money I have set aside to pay for content I
like and he can have it. If he doesn't want it then he doesn't need to claim
it.

Every time the status quo has shifted in advertising people have claimed its
illegal and a violation of copyright, but the courts have been much more
nuanced. Thankfully in this kind of case you can't separate ad blocking and
content discovery from what brave is doing, so if someone is going to pick a
fight they will be picking the fight with Google, Microsoft and every other
tech company out there not just with Brave

[https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Tom%20Scott](https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Tom%20Scott)

~~~
scarejunba
Google isn't impersonating Tom Scott here. Brave is.

You're the bad guys here and you can't see it because you think everyone else
is Google and Facebook and tracking people. People want nothing to do with
either you _or_ them. But clearly less to do with you.

I'm not surprised that the angle is "sure we're bad but people will have to go
for the guys with big pockets first". At least you know you're the bad guys.
That's something.

~~~
dkhenry
Brave is no more impersonating Tom Scott then Google is, in fact they use the
same source of information and get it the same way, the only difference is in
Brave, after they pull and display that information from the public place
where Tom put it ( specifically how he put it there to get displayed in this
fashion ) they let me decide if Tom should be able to have some of my money.
Every other company that displays this information injects their ads with no
ability for me to decide where the money goes or what information they pull
off me as part of that process. Even more so I have no way of opting out of
that. If people want nothing to do with Brave then don't use it.

The idea you think I, someone with no affiliation with either Brave, or
Google, or Tom, is a bad guy because I want to support content creators is
laughable. I think the idea that there is a way users can control their
personal information and still support content creators is really upsetting to
people who are used to being able to dictate the terms of the internet and get
wealthy off the backs of users and creators. I for my part won't let random
corporations take my information and sell it to anyone who wants. I know that
may make some people want to label me a bad guy and I am ok with that. They
can continue to participate in that economy, and creators can block my
browser. As long as they allow me to freely obtain their content I will use
the systems I find useful to attempt to support an open and fair internet.

~~~
ubernostrum
Google doesn't pop up a thing asking me to donate to Tom Scott's fundraising
campaign.

Brave apparently does (based on screenshots shared by others; in order to
preserve my right to legal action in the future I'm very carefully never going
to personally do anything that would require accepting Brave's ToS).

See my other comments in this thread for why A) that's a bad thing and B) if
you work at Brave you should quit and hire a lawyer.

~~~
dkhenry
Neither does Brave, its really clear when you use the browser that you are
allocating your funds via the BAT system not "fundraising" on behalf of a
person, and its also clear what happens to your funds if the person you
allocated them to doesn't want them.

Also the idea your in more legal jeopardy working at Brave, then you are
working at any other company is silly. There is a distinction in corporate
liability between employees and officers of a company ( its why no Thanos
employees have been held liable for the fraud there). It makes me wonder what
is going on when I see people participating in such strong fearmongering.
Especially when you are flat out wrong on some of the basic legal principles
you are discussing.

~~~
ubernostrum
Like I said elsewhere: these kinds of schemes don't really "work". The best
that happens is you get away with it for a while until you accidentally do it
to someone with resources.

Are you carefully vetting every single entity whose content you show this pop-
up on (regardless of what description you choose to use to spin what it is) to
make sure none of them have trademarks that could be enforced against you?
Because if any of them do, game over. You can hem and haw and deflect and
pretend to be helping creators as much as you like, but you don't have the
legal right to appropriate someone else's mark to raise money.

And if you _are_ vetting to make sure you don't pop up on anyone who has a
trademark, what if that comes out in discovery when someone goes after you,
and suddenly you get to answer questions about whether Brave knew that what
they were doing might not be legal (as evidenced by the care they took around
trademarks), did it anyway, and now it's _really_ over.

And like I said elsewhere: when the shit hits the fan, what's your personal
plan for Brave deciding that all your "helpful" comments here weren't
authorized and were in fact misrepresenting them, which led to the terrible
misunderstandings that provoked the legal action?

I'm trying my best to help you see the ways this can go badly. I'm also very
sincere in my advice of "lawyer up". I'm not your attorney and this isn't
legal advice, but I think you should have both an attorney and legal advice.

The folks who've run this scheme in the past were mostly small-time, and the
worst that happened was they were forced to stop or retool because they
weren't worth the effort of going after properly. Brave has attracted enough
attention and money to be a lucrative target for someone to eventually turn
into a smoking hole in the ground. Please, for your sake, fix this or get out
of it ASAP.

~~~
dkhenry
The courts have ruled many times using content that is in the public domain is
fair use, you have no claim to trademark protection when you place your
information on the internet for others to scrape ( you can however opt out,
read up on the various Google News fights if you need more info ), but lets
say we live in a world where Brave looses that court case, and someone decides
this was all illegal. There is no liability for employees who work at the
company ( even if they post on a public forum ). In fact it turns out
according to the US court system that even if you as an employee _know_ you
are violating copyright, and even if you send email's using your corporate
account about the known violation, and even if those emails show up in
discovery, you are not personally liable ( see Youtube vs Viacom )

You are wrong about this, there is lots of precedent to say this is legal, and
even more to say that working at brave is not a legal liability. However I am
not your lawyer, nor am I Brave's lawyer, or Tom's Lawyer. I am not at all
related to anyone involved in this fight, I am just a lowly internet user who
happens to think this is a good model for the future of the internet. Feel
free to ignore me and continue to tell people the sky is falling.

~~~
ubernostrum
_The courts have ruled many times using content that is in the public domain
is fair use, you have no claim to trademark protection_

If you take all your legal advice from people who repost whole movies onto
youtube and put "no copyright intended" in the description as if it's a magic
talisman, maybe.

But in the actual world, if you use someone else's trademark to make money,
you're gonna have a bad time, and part of that bad time will be learning in
excruciating detail what "public domain" and "fair use" actually mean.

"Something is viewable by the public on the internet" is not "public domain".
Public domain means copyright has expired on the material, or that the
material was for some reason never protected by copyright (such as certain
works of the federal government, in the US). "Fair use" is a defense that can
be raised to claims of copyright infringement, and uses a multi-factor test.
None of the factors are "but it was there on the internet for me to take".

Neither of these involve trademarks, which are a different area entirely.
Using someone else's trademark for your profit is very much not "public
domain" and not "fair use", and will not end well.

~~~
dkhenry
Your correct that in the real world things are different, in fact here are the
real world court cases that in my opinion clearly define the activity of the
Brave browser as not a copyright violation.

This case was about google getting money while displaying parts of copyrighted
material. The court ruled it was fair use.
([https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/834877-google-
books-...](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/834877-google-books-ruling-
on-fair-use.html))

This case ( still pending ) was about google being able to display parts of
news stories without paying the authors ( the initial ruling was it was legal,
but Germany was allowed to impose a "tax", current guidance is that even the
tax may not be allowed and Google will be able to display the content )
[https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2018/12/13/technology/13reut...](https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2018/12/13/technology/13reuters-
germany-copyright-publishers.html)

Since you referenced people who had the same idea as Brave and it was found to
be illegal, would you care to reference those specific cases ?

~~~
ubernostrum
I referenced people who've tried this before and were made to shut down or
change tactics before it escalated to a court ruling.

You also keep citing copyright cases. You cited a case where the multi-factor
test of fair use was met, without explaining why you think Brave would meet
that test.

You have not yet provided evidence of a case ruling that all trademarks are
"public domain" free for the "fair use" of anyone for any purpose, and
therefore that trademarks provide no protection whatsoever. I await your
attempt to do so.

------
bibinou
Who is me?

~~~
plusCubed
Tom Scott, an educational YouTuber. (I am not him, the title was changed by a
mod I think)

~~~
dang
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
Ah got it. Maybe the first-person part can be added to
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)
?

------
lunulata
that does sound brave

~~~
jessaustin
I suppose bravery is somewhat akin to _chutzpah_...

~~~
lunulata
lol yeah, chutzpah, thinking more brave than shameless going forward with a
blatantly illegal business model. Fraud is more than just frowned upon

------
jimktrains2
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
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.

~~~
jimktrains2
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
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.

~~~
ripdog
The try again button works reliably for me on Firefox Mobile.

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

~~~
ryanlol
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.

------
nyrosis
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.

------
Solar19
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
It wouldn't. Nobody owes you automated consent or anything.

