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Brave taking cryptocurrency donations “for me” without my consent

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323 points plusCubed | 9 comments | 21 Dec 18 17:48 UTC | HN request time: 0.779s | source | bottom
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egypturnash ◴[21 Dec 18 19:55 UTC] No.18736059[source]▶
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/

- 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) 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.

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duxup ◴[21 Dec 18 20:00 UTC] No.18736102[source]▶
That sounds so clumsy that I suspect they really don't care / want folks to fail to collect.
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egypturnash ◴[21 Dec 18 20:22 UTC] No.18736285[source]▶
Yeah I suspect this is part of their overall revenue model.
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brandnewlow ◴[21 Dec 18 20:44 UTC] No.18736484[source]▶
Honest question: Why do you suspect that? (I work at Brave. We're all very, very nerdy here. It'd be helpful to understand why a fellow nerd suspects we're up to no good.)
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1. britch ◴[21 Dec 18 21:21 UTC] No.18736759[source]▶
You're taking money for people without a good way of getting it to them (or ensuring that they want the money at all).

My friend Mark had an accident and I think he needs help paying for it. Would you give me some money to help Mark pay for his medical bills? Thank you, I'll just put it in my bank account until Mark asks me for the it.

Trust me, I'm trying very hard to let Mark know I have money for him. I'm going to send a letter to his parent's house so he knows that I have money for him, but only when I get $100. In the mean time I'll just hold on to the money.

Oh Mark never got the money you gave me to give to him?

Well, you only gave me $75 so I never sent him a letter.

Well, it turns out Mark isn't on speaking terms with his parents, so he never got the letter.

Well, he has health insurance and didn't need the money after all.

Where's the money now? I guess it's still in my bank account. No you can't have it back.

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2. trhway ◴[21 Dec 18 23:19 UTC] No.18737615[source]▶
>My friend Mark

i'm thinking about starting to accept money on behalf of Hollywood stars like say Tom Cruise. Once $10M is collected (obviously there is no point in bothering Tom with lesser sums) i will do my best to deliver the money to him.

3. berbec ◴[22 Dec 18 03:06 UTC] No.18738677[source]▶
I find it interesting this was not responded to as it is a great and easily understood description of how one could see Brave as a scam.
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4. mthoms ◴[22 Dec 18 05:56 UTC] No.18739189[source]▶
>Where's the money now? I guess it's still in my bank account. No you can't have it back.

Except the money goes back to the Brave user pool and ends up in the hands of creators who have opted to participate. Brave's hope is that every content creator will eventually register to collect what's theirs. Their business model depends on it.

Before judging, please read their materials (and examine their pedigree). It's pretty clear they are thinking much, much bigger than what you're accusing them of. This a Google level play, not some two-bit micro-transaction scam (if anything, it's a little bit too ambitious).

This all goes without even mentioning the huge privacy gains to be had for end users if their model works. I encourage you to have a look into that as well if it's a topic you're interested in.

Time will tell if they succeed or fail. But if they fail, at least they'll do so "while daring greatly".

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5. niij ◴[22 Dec 18 17:16 UTC] No.18741435[source]▶
So people can donate to person X but if they don't claim it in time, the money is given away to all the other users that are using the service? That seems really shady to me that donations would be redirected like that. Either keep the money in escrow forever or don't take unsolicited donations without the person's consent in the first place.
6. brandnewlow ◴[22 Dec 18 18:30 UTC] No.18741794[source]▶
This was not our intention.

We shipped a UI/UX that was confusing. We originally used checkmarks to denote creators participating in the program but did not have clear language or markers for creators not participating in then program. Many have pointed out the problem with that, which is helpful!

That's all being updated now and will hopefully roll out very soon. We've heard the feedback and will make sure no creator assets are used for non-verified creators, that it's clear non-participating creators are not in fact participating, and that any tips sent their way will not in fact reach them unless they choose to participate. We're also adding more clarification around what happens to funds "tipped" to non-participating creators.

We want it to be clear if Mark is part of Brave Rewards or not.

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7. brandnewlow ◴[22 Dec 18 18:31 UTC] No.18741798[source]▶
Response posted above! I was waiting to make sure I understood what actions we are taking in response to all the feedback.
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8. 43920 ◴[22 Dec 18 23:33 UTC] No.18743130[source]▶
Why do you even allow donations to "non-verified" websites at all? As far as I can tell, there really isn't any legitimate reason for this, other than forcing website owners to sign up for your payment system.
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9. brandnewlow ◴[23 Dec 18 04:15 UTC] No.18744388{3}[source]▶
This is a fair question that's being discussed internally as a consequence of the feedback we're hearing from everyone.

Brave is about to push up a number of hotfixes to our code that address people's concerns. You can read about them here: https://brave.com/rewards-update/

You'll see an express commitment to consider whether to completely block out tips to unverified creators/publishers. That's not a thing we could fix overnight but we're acknowledging it might be the best move and committing to looking into it.