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Brave taking cryptocurrency donations “for me” without my consent

(twitter.com)
323 points plusCubed | 6 comments | 21 Dec 18 17:48 UTC | HN request time: 0.897s | 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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pushcx ◴[21 Dec 18 21:45 UTC] No.18736958[source]▶
https://twitter.com/ummjackson/status/1076221401353207808

Your UI really looks like Tom Scott has signed up to receive donations through you, not like you've scraped his photo and name off twitter and written a fundraising plea with zero mention that he's never heard of you and that you won't even try to contact him until $100 accumulates and then only half-assedly.

For most of us this is our first exposure to your model and UI, so that has set a very negative expectation. This looks like a scam and I'm now trying to figure out how to know if you've scammed any of my users without doing anything like installing Brave or signing up because your metrics probably count that as success rather than suspicion.

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1. jacquesm ◴[22 Dec 18 00:09 UTC] No.18737918[source]▶
That doesn't just look like a scam. That is a scam. You can't just go collecting for causes without being empowered to do so. It's the same as people that go door to door collecting money for some charity when they are actually just going to spend it on their own stuff.
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2. oh_sigh ◴[22 Dec 18 06:01 UTC] No.18739206[source]▶
The 'spend it on their own stuff' is the illegal part, not the going door to door collecting money part.

You most certainly can go door to door and solicit donations to a charity you have nothing to do with...as long as you actually fulfill the contract.

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3. Doctor_Fegg ◴[22 Dec 18 07:58 UTC] No.18739539[source]▶
You might want to cite your “most certainly” because I’m far from sure that’s true in all jurisdictions.
4. brandnewlow ◴[23 Dec 18 04:23 UTC] No.18744414[source]▶
Hi Jacquesm. We had no intention to scam people. We shipped a confusing UI that should have been better thought out. In response to all the passionate feedback from creators our product team worked around the clock to push up a bunch of hotfixes that should go live tomorrow. You can read about them here: https://brave.com/rewards-update/

Thanks for jumping into the conversation. Also thanks for all the stories on HN over the years.

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5. pull_my_finger ◴[23 Dec 18 05:56 UTC] No.18744681[source]▶
The UI isn't the only problem. Take your blinders off. People don't want to be opted into a service like this. I believe it was intentional to make it "look" like everyone is already a part of this (see facebook's creating "shadow accounts" so people think everyone is already on there). This is a scammy move and you need to stop. If you don't think you can get your foot in the door in a new market space legitimately then just stick to making a browser and leave tips/funding to Patreon and others.
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6. brandnewlow ◴[23 Dec 18 07:28 UTC] No.18744929{3}[source]▶
That's not true. We spent a lot of time designing the UI for verified creators and did not spend adequate time thinking through the UI for unverified creators. The changes being rolled out tomorrow will address the concerns that have been voiced. No one will look like they are participating in the program who isn't.