Former Mozilla CEO raises $35M in under 30s for his browser startup Brave
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
Look at question 15 in their FAQ. https://brave.com/FAQ.html They're gathering much more information than regular ads are able to, and they're using that information to push more highly targeted ads at you. That's the business model. All the handwaving about how that information never leaves the browser is irrelevant; it's still being used to push ads at you.
Our auditable open source browser code protects this intent data on the client device. Our server side has no access to this data in the clear, nor does it have decryption keys. We do not run a MitM proxy or VPN service.
Right, as expected. So they aren't pulling your data - according to them. So I don't see the problem.
Yes, but by default most browsers don't go on to use that information to decide "what preferences and intent signals to expose [to advertisers] to maximize user, publisher and advertiser [and Brave's] value".
>Our server side has no access to this data in the clear, nor does it have decryption keys. We do not run a MitM proxy or VPN service.
See, this is the brilliant marketing I was talking about. They don't use the data serverside and expose the results to advertisers. They use it clientside and then expose the results to advertisers. The end result is exactly the same, it just sounds friendlier. The references to MitM and VPNs is just verbal chaff: they don't need to run a man-in-the-middle attack to listen in on your traffic, because the end-user software is already doing everything a MitM would have done, and then some.
Now do you see the problem?
Otherwise they would be breaking the exposure protection if you sent your "intent" to their or another ad server.
I think the trick here is that they don't want to completely break the capability for people to make money off of serving ads and people seeing those ads. So if that's the case then making everyone their own ad server makes sense.
You appear to be in agreement with my original point: Brave is advertising middleware and privacy intrusion branded as an ad blocker and privacy protector.
As always, Brave is hosted in the open: https://github.com/brave/browser-laptop/
You might consider rewriting the FAQ page that your CEO described as "out of date" which repeatedly refers to ad replacement in the present tense; I see no mention anywhere that it's "part of a future opt-in component", welcome though that news is.
The blog post at https://www.brave.com/blogpost_2.html from January also describes ad replacement as a current feature, and as the default behavior, not opt-in; and seems to indicate that it is using the tracking and fingerprinting behavior described above:
> You’re game to try our default mode of operation, for a better ad-supported Web. Just leave the Replace Ads item checked. This is the default mode of operation. We insert ads after blocking without hurting page load speed, and those ads will support the sites you browse. We choose ads based on browser-private user data with no remote tracking -- not even by our servers.
So I'm not entirely sure what to make of your description of it as a 'future component', as that seems in conflict with much of your marketing material.
(I do see you've added a disclaimer to your "About ad replacement" page at https://brave.com/about_ad_replacement.html which I'm pretty sure wasn't there when I made the comments you're responding to. Perhaps this is a recent change in your software? Did you used to have ad replacement built in as the default, then removed it?)
(Edited to add: on closer reading I do see that that blog post is describing a "mock user interface", so perhaps I've misunderstood the mixture of present and future tense within the rest of the text as referring to actual, rather than planned, implementation. You guys could certainly stand to be a lot clearer about what your product is and isn't doing, especially since it seems to change fairly frequently.)
There's probably a lot of disappointed people who missed the crowdsale - this means the project would have a lot of salty opponents now.
Yes, ad blockers work. But they are susceptible to the tragedy of the commons: it's always advantageous to install an ad blocker. Then, as they proliferate, companies must insert more and more intrusive ads. This encourages more people to get ad blockers.
Allowing a tiered economy for content will enable those who wish to pay to do so, and those who don't to see ads. The ads can become less intrusive because the companies are no longer playing a cat-and-mouse game with their inventory. That should decrease the incentive to use an ad blocker, allowing that revenue stream to stabilize.
Subscribers to the NYT: are they the customer or the inventory (or product)?
Subscribers to Netflix: are they the customer or the inventory (or product)?
I really don't see why companies wouldn't treat them as both. So many businesses are operating on a subscription model, and still treat their "customers" as databanks ripe for mining and selling to their "real customers": advertisers and other purchasers of user data.
The 21st Century has really become the century of spyware, and I don't see paying for content as a reliable way for consumers to avoid being a target.
Doesn't Firefox do all of that already for free? It's FOSS and has a wide range of privacy features baked in including pixel blocking. Adding on ghostery and ublock covers the rest. Seems like the only difference is configuring options on installation.
A direct-pay model mean that content creators have to adhere to what their audience approves of.
I know which one I prefer.
Sheez FFS, someone learn how to write headlines. I was trying to figure out what that mean. 30 is not a dollar bill denomination? All the donations were under $30? What?