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323 points plusCubed | 6 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source | bottom
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plusCubed ◴[] No.18735107[source]
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...

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

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?

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brandnewlow ◴[] No.18736561[source]
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.

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detaro ◴[] No.18736743[source]
I quote your own terms of service:

For each Publisher URL receiving votes during a Calculation Period that is not a Brave Publisher by the end of that Calculation Period, the BAT corresponding to its votes will not be distributed at the end of that Calculation Period, and will instead be held in an Uphold omnibus wallet for no less than ninety (90) days thereafter. At that time, the undistributed BAT may be sent to Company’s user growth pool, which is a pool of BAT that Company administers to incentivize use of the Platform [..] Publisher Contributions will be calculated solely based on our accounting. Solely as a cost-recovery measure, we may allocate a certain amount of BAT contributed by Brave Contributors each Calculation Period toward our reasonable expenses incurred in facilitating Publisher Contributions. (https://basicattentiontoken.org/contributor-terms-of-service... section 4 "contributions")

Sounds very much like "we can redirect this from escrow if we want to".

replies(2): >>18737054 #>>18737170 #
1. uberman ◴[] No.18737054[source]
Sounds very clearly like "scam" as well!
replies(1): >>18737113 #
2. detaro ◴[] No.18737113[source]
To be fair, it's entirely possible they're not actually making use of that, or only in very limited circumstances, and it's less "how can we trick people" and more "we didn't really think about what that looks like, because we know we are the good guys", and given their anonymous design they need some out if they don't want to be stuck responsible for funds for eternity. If it's the latter, they're now finding out that especially in combination with the deceptive UI it really looks bad.

And even without the clause, if they truly held it in escrow forever, taking money unasked without a way of returning it, is still a bad thing. Given this isn't the first "support creators" app doing this and getting publicly shamed for it, I have no idea how that went through.

replies(1): >>18741762 #
3. brandnewlow ◴[] No.18741762[source]
That's a pretty accurate read on things. We've never actually recycled any funds and also hadn't considered that many creators would interpret our UI/UX as "solicitation" vs. "letting a user do a thing they want to do in our browser."

In any event, the confusion is our fault and we're working on updating the UI and language to be clear based on all the feedback we've gotten.

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4. ubernostrum ◴[] No.18741898{3}[source]
How about instead you shut this off and rebuild it to be explicitly opt-in only?

Or, better for you personally: how about you hand in your resignation and retain an attorney?

Here's the thing: people who get away with this type of thing (sorry, "exciting and new crowdfunding option for creators", or whatever y'all prefer to call it) tend to get away with it only for as long as the targets of their "fundraising" are small-time creators who don't have the resources to pursue action against it. But sooner or later, even if only by accident, Brave's going to impersonate (sorry, "offer exciting crowdfunding options on behalf of") some entity that has resources, including lawyers, and it's going to end badly.

When that happens, a possible outcome is that they will suddenly "discover" all your statements on their behalf in this thread, and that's when it will end badly for you. Oh, that wasn't our position at all, oh, he wasn't authorized to speak like that on our behalf, oh, that's definitely not what we intended, we'll take action immediately to remedy that! The absolute best outcome of that for you is you get fired for cause. The worst outcomes involve you becoming the target of multiple legal actions.

I'm not an attorney and I'm not giving you legal advice. I will give you sincere personal advice: resign, hire an attorney. Find another job working somewhere that poses less of a threat to you.

As to why people will come after you, let me count the ways:

I know people who blog or create YouTube videos or whatever and are very careful not to monetize, because they're disabled and can't work but still need something to fill their days. But disability benefits are means-tested and income streams are constantly investigated. If a benefits agency decides that your scheme is providing income to a disabled person, congratulations! You just cut off their income, and they probably never even knew you existed. That's bad.

I have worked with several open-source projects that rely heavily on donations to keep going. They all have prominent things on their websites directing people where to go to donate, but you'd like to hijack that and instead send people to something the project doesn't know about and may not be able to collect on (especially given how often you flush the "donations" and how many hoops it seems people have to jump through, which many commenters have identified as something that makes them think this is a scam). Congratulations, you just took resources away from the project. And, for projects which use nonprofit foundations to manage fundraising, you just created tax issues -- what happens when the taxman doesn't believe the "we didn't know about them raising money for us" story?

And round and round and round we go. You're going to be hurting those people to make money. If you have a moral compass, it should be pointing heavily toward getting the hell out of there, as soon as you can.

Plus, crypto in general is in weird legal space to begin with. Lots of people can't afford to have you dealing in potentially unregistered securities in their names and without their knowledge or consent. In the US that could easily lead to federal felonies for them, because of what you did.

So, look. I've seen this pattern again and again and again. What Brave is doing is not a new idea. It's widely, roundly, solidly despised, both because it's an unwarranted intrusion on other people and because it creates such nebulous but frightening potential consequences for them. I've also been waiting for one of these crypto "fundraising" operations to finally go far enough that someone (either an entity with good lawyers, or a regulator) bothers to turn them into a smoking hole in the ground as an example to others. Maybe that's the ultimate fate of Brave; if it is, I won't shed any tears.

replies(2): >>18743110 #>>18744497 #
5. atomical ◴[] No.18743110{4}[source]
Everyone will be sued. That much is certain. However, executing machine learning in the browser to protect privacy is a step forward.
6. brandnewlow ◴[] No.18744497{4}[source]
You make a lot of great arguments against business practices we have no intention of pursuing. We shipped some poorly-considered UI, got a bunch of deserved flack for it, and are pushing up fixes swiftly (tomorrow). You can read about them here: https://brave.com/rewards-update/

Thanks for your passion for creators and for those of modest means and with disabilities. The internet is awesome in part because it's a place where everyone and anyone can contribute.