
Newspapers slam ex-Mozilla CEO's new ad-blocking browser - randomname2
http://www.businessinsider.com/newspaper-publishers-send-cease-and-desist-to-brave-browser-2016-4?r=US&IR=T
======
mikegioia
The argument against ad-blocking is that the content-creators don't get paid
for their content. But, honest question: who cares!?

If you push out content and you can't make money on it without ads, then that
content didn't need to be created in the first place. The argument then
devolves to "there won't be any good content" but I'll _gladly_ roll the dice
on that world to see what we're left with.

Ads, to me, represent a monetization strategy rooted in "I did something, and
you're looking at, so I deserve to get paid" but that makes no sense. The
disconnect here is the presumption that the content has any value to begin
with. I think what scares traditional content-creators is the idea that the
vast majority of content has no inherent value.

~~~
onion2k
_If you push out content and you can 't make money on it without ads, then
that content didn't need to be created in the first place. The argument then
devolves to "there won't be any good content" but I'll _gladly_ roll the dice
on that world to see what we're left with._

It'd be interesting to see if that's true for very many people. As an
experiment, we could take a fork of good quality ad-blocker and change the way
that it works so that rather than blocking the advert content when it detects
an ad on a page it blocks the entire page.

That way users who don't want to reward content creators with money from
adverts would no longer see the content they're refusing to pay for. And if
the content creator gives users the option to pay instead of seeing adverts
then a simple direct payment would make the site work because the ad blocker
would no longer block anything.

I'm actually tempted to give that a try to see what impact it has on my
browsing.

~~~
hkmurakami
Forbes implemented this and so far none of their articles were worth reopening
in an ad block enabled browser for me.

------
RandomSeeded
What I don't understand is how Brave expects to gain a userbase. It's a
Chromium fork with an ad-blocking/replacing scheme. If a user wanted to
install an adblocker, why wouldn't they simply install an adblocker which
removes all ads instead of an entirely separate browser which still has ads
that some third party has deemed acceptable? It's not like the Brave scheme
has any moral high ground here to appeal to; it's not a unique scheme and when
others have tried it it generally wasn't received well[0].

I simply can't come up with a way in which Brave wins market share.

[0] [http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/09/why-comcasts-
java...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/09/why-comcasts-javascript-
ad-injections-threaten-security-net-neutrality/)

~~~
lackbeard
Aren't they paying users a cut of the ad revenue?

~~~
reustle
Do you think advertisers are going to be that interested in paying the people
looking at their ads? I just don't see how that will work in the long run.

~~~
lackbeard
From what I understand, advertisers aren't paying the users of Brave. Brave is
paying the users.

Advertisers pay Brave (just as they would pay any other ad network, I guess?)
Brave then slices that money up giving a % to the content publisher, a % to
the user, and keeping a % for themselves.

~~~
reustle
Yeah, but if advertisers pay Brave knowing Brave pays viewers, then the
advertisers know they are paying users at the end of the day.

------
eveningcoffee
I must say that I have nothing against ads in general, but I am fiercely
against the ads that are predatory in their nature.

This includes the ads that rely on the network of global surveillance of every
web user actions in the Internet,

this includes the ads what main indention is to disrupt and control the main
flow of the user who perceives the Internet mainly as the reading medium,

and obviously everything that is clearly malicious including direct malware
attacks through the ad systems to the more subtle malicious attempts to market
products or services that are attacking users sexual, financial or emotional
integrity.

~~~
epoch1970
What kind of ads aren't "predatory in their nature"?

The only kind I can think of is uncompensated word-of-mouth recommendations
based on prior good experiences. But I don't really consider that
"advertising", as it isn't the beneficiary itself causing this promotion to
happen.

~~~
eveningcoffee
I think there is a sense of truth in what you are saying, but I think that is
not completely black and white.

For example honest product advertisements can be described as non-predatory.

I also think that magazine ads are an order of less predatory compared to the
TV ads because you are not forced to perceive them.

Google ads many years ago without all reaching Google Analyse and other Google
whole web tracking projects were at least two orders less predatory than
Google ads today.

------
jusben1369
Is his business model any different to me selling my own dish, intercepting
Dishtv/satellite streams, redirecting it to my users and inserting my own ads
in place of the ones already being shown?

~~~
haneefmubarak
Actually, yeah, it is. A better analogy is TVs.

For years, everyone has been hooking up their own TVs (browsers) to their
service (internet) and have had to watch and listen to really noisy,
distracting ads that subtract from their experience (web ads that track,
reduce performance, and are really distracting).

Recently, some people came up with interceptor boxes and DVRs (extensions)
that let you either silence and block out ads or record what you want to watch
and play it back while skipping ads. Many people loved this and started
actively using them.

Now someone came up with a new TV (Eich's browser) that automatically removes
ads and replaces them with quieter, less distracting ads. That's all it is.

Until today, I didn't know that Brave was available on other platforms, since
I only use it on Android (it replaced an app I was previously using, link
bubble). I gotta admit it's pretty decent, although it's unlikely that I'll be
using it to replace my usual desktop combo of Google Chrome + uBlock Origin.

------
askyourmother
Businesses who expose their users to malware and harm via infected ads they
choose not to screen or vet in-house, complain when those same users take
steps to protect themselves.

Maybe we need to change the terminology: "I use a browser condom to prevent ad
STDs from the various glory hole, sorry, glorious content, sites I frequent".

~~~
makomk
I hate to break it to you, but Brave has a nice big Limitation of Liability
section in their terms of use that completely exempts them from liability for
any malicious ads they might insert into web pages.

------
simeonf
From the response
[https://www.brave.com/blogpost_4.html](https://www.brave.com/blogpost_4.html)

> Brave is not, as the NAA asserts, “replac[ing] publishers' ads on the
> publishers' own websites and mobile applications with Brave's own
> advertising.” We do not tamper with any first-party publisher content,
> including native ads that do not use third-party tracking.

Is this a refutation or an evasion? Does Brave replace 3rdparty tracking ads?

I fired up brave and visited a few sites - I don't see any ads at all...

------
joesmo
Using Brave is almost as dumb as not using an ad blocker at all from a
security perspective unless Eich has a plan to 100% eliminate malware,
something I'd be extremely sceptical about. I don't see how his malware is
going to be different from the regular malware in ads currently. Now where is
the full list of newspapers because I'm interested in actively avoiding their
content due to this obviously political (and extremely disgusting and greedy)
move.

~~~
woah
Pretty easy. Strip all script tags from ad markup.

~~~
joesmo
Unfortunately, that won't even get rid of all XSS or Javascript, so it won't
work.

------
J_Darnley
Cry me a river. Publishers and ad companies deserve everything they're getting
and more.

~~~
noir_lord
In their current guise I couldn't agree more.

They created a corrupt model that serves them at the expense of the users and
then act aggrieved when the users retaliate.

------
bhickey
I'd like to see a copyright attorney weigh in on the NAA's claims. There seems
to be an analogy between what Brave is doing and ClearPlay/CleanFlicks.
ClearPlay offers filters based on tagging offensive frames in films. Congress
amended copyright law to bless this as lawful.

------
davidf18
The advertisings _must_ change their business model. They should follow the
models used by content providers on Cable. I pay Verizon an enormous amount of
money each month for the "pipe" as do others pay high fees for cellular phone
providers. The content providers should get a portion of the excessively high
amount of money I pay to Verizon to pay for their content.

------
uw_rob
It seems that most people in the comments haven't actually read the article as
the complaint seems to not be about ad-blocking but about the browser
replacing ads with its own.

What would the argument for this being OK be?

Also as an aside, it seems insane to me that people are comparing the ad-
blocking to having others decide what you can and cannot read, and that it is
somehow a violation of advertisers freedom.

~~~
Lazare
> What would the argument for this being OK be?

What would be the argument that it's not okay? To me your argument is like
saying that it's okay to buy a book and draw on the cover with a green pen,
but not okay to draw on the cover with a red pen. If I bought the book, I can
modify it how I want; the colour of ink I use shouldn't matter.

~~~
uw_rob
I think the user should have the right to choose what, and how, content is
displayed.

With that being said, I think it is morally dubious for a browser to inject
ads. Regardless of the privacy concerns, I don't think anyone should profit at
the direct costs of others.

I think your physical comparison fails as it tries to equate a right to
something that is moral. And sometimes they are different.

~~~
Lazare
> I don't think anyone should profit at the direct costs of others.

Does this mean it's immoral for me to donate $5 to my favourite ad blocking
extension author? After all, the author is now profiting at the expense of the
publisher.

Similarly, is it immoral for me to sign up for a service which injects
_additional_ ads in exchange for a fee, if I so choose? If not, does it become
immoral in your eyes for me to also run an ad blocker which blocks the normal
ads? Or is it important that the ad injection browser extension be written by
a different person than the ad blocking browser extension? Considering that
Brave is (I imagine) not turning a profit, does that mean their service is
okay until they become profitable, then becomes immoral?

> I think your physical comparison fails as it tries to equate a right to
> something that is moral. And sometimes they are different.

I am discussing morality in both cases.

------
strooper
In the world of multi billion dollar ad industry literally controlling the
contents in www, it is truly brave effort, or blackmailing based monetization.
Remember Ad block plus whiltelisting ads after getting paid?

------
r0muald
It's very odd that a letter written in purely legalese terms receives a reply
that is mainly hand-waving and pointless in the remarks that are made (as if
all the details given by Brave/Eich weren't already known). Doesn't strike me
as particularly brilliant, but IANAL etc.

I also wonder how long until Brendan Eich is just "Brendan Eich" and not
"Mozilla former CEO". I can't imagine Mozilla is very happy with being
associated with a competitor, especially in a situation like this.

~~~
ZanyProgrammer
Its a fact that he was the former CEO of Mozilla, regardless of what you think
of his or Mozilla's actions. How can they stop him from correctly representing
his past?

------
michael_h
> It is the rich and self-righteous, who want to tell everyone else what they
> can and cannot read and watch and hear

That is a rich vein of irony

------
mtgx
Brendan Eich just can't seem to catch a break.

~~~
callahad
To the contrary, articles like these are one hell of a break in terms of
exposure for Brave.

~~~
jusben1369
That is certainly true.

------
NelsonMinar
The headline and post title are misleading. Brave is not an ad-blocking
browser. It is an ad-replacing browser. Blocking ads is useful and ethical.
Replacing ads to capture revenue is bad and unethical.

~~~
woah
It's my right to do whatever I want with the bytes I download over http. Do
you disagree?

~~~
NelsonMinar
I agree. But I think it is unethical to build a business around convincing
consumers to replace a content producers' revenue with its own.

