{"id":11724,"date":"2019-01-13T23:14:26","date_gmt":"2019-01-13T23:14:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/?p=11724"},"modified":"2020-06-07T17:17:22","modified_gmt":"2020-06-07T17:17:22","slug":"brave-web-browser-no-longer-claims-to-fundraise-on-behalf-of-others-so-thats-nice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/2019\/01\/13\/brave-web-browser-no-longer-claims-to-fundraise-on-behalf-of-others-so-thats-nice\/","title":{"rendered":"Brave web browser no longer claims to fundraise on behalf of others \u2014 so that’s nice"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Brave web browser is a favourite of crypto fans, because it has a crypto in it \u2014 the Basic Attention Token (BAT) ERC-20<\/a> token. The idea is that you can give this to creators whose stuff you like.<\/p>\n

This caused some slight problems just before Christmas \u2014 when the browser was caught presenting “support this site” banners for creators who weren’t signed up for BAT at all. Amy Castor wrote up the story<\/a> (archive<\/a>) for The Block.<\/p>\n

British YouTuber Tom Scott<\/a> was asked<\/a> if he was getting his BAT donations \u2014 and Tom was not pleased in the slightest<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 “it’s about ‘passing off’, claiming you represent someone when you don’t.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

So if you thought you’d donated to me through Brave, the money (or their pseudo-money) will not reach me, and Brave’s terms say they may choose to just keep it themselves. It looks like they’re ‘providing this service’ for every creator on every platform. No opt-in, no consent. \u2014 Tom Scott (@tomscott) December 21, 2018<\/em><\/small><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Here’s what the browser was showing people (screenshot<\/a> by Jackson Palmer). Any reasonable person would call this “passing off” \u2014 it’s got the creator’s name and photo, and the direct claim “You can support this site by sending a tip”:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Quite a lot of Twitter objected to what was, to all appearances, blatant fraud.<\/p>\n

After Brave founder Brendan Eich had spent about five days on Twitter berating his many objectors with allusions to Plato<\/a>, Hume<\/a> and Nietzsche<\/a> \u2014 “In short run, without sounding Nietzschean, will matters. Patreon\u2019s is weak or corrupt. Ours is not.” \u2014 he conceded they would probably have to change the wording.<\/p>\n

So, Brave version 0.58.21<\/a> came out yesterday! I installed it in a clean Windows 10 VM<\/a> to see what it does now.<\/p>\n

You can ask the browser for 35 BATs to start you off \u2014 go to the hamburger menu, then “Brave Rewards.” To give BATs to people, you click the little triangle icon in the address bar.<\/p>\n

(You can hypothetically sell BATs on Coinbase,<\/a> but I don’t think you can get these ones out of the browser.)<\/p>\n

I tried a couple of YouTube channels \u2014 mine,<\/a> which is not signed up for BATs, and David Hay<\/a>‘s, which is. The browser is now much clearer about whether creators are signed up:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Include in Auto-Contribute” is the default \u2014 I’m presuming that if you don’t<\/i> untick it, your supply of BATs will drain away monthly.<\/p>\n

What happens if you send a tip to an unverified creator?<\/p>\n

I click “tip” for my YouTube channel, and the screen below comes up. The “Learn more” link goes to the Brave FAQ,<\/a> which says that no funds leave the browser until the creator verifies \u2014 but admits that previous versions of Brave worked differently, and sent the tokens to Brave in the hope that the creator would sign up at some point.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I tipped myself 1.0 BAT\u00a0\u2014 will Brave now try to contact me as a creator with a tip waiting? Let’s see what happens when I don’t verify.<\/p>\n

\"Become<\/a>

Your subscriptions keep this site going. Sign up today!<\/a><\/i><\/p><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Despite Brendan Eich tweeting for about five days to defend Brave’s previous behaviour, his web browser is no longer displaying apparent donation pages for creators who never signed up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1088,1087,1121,1120,1090,1089],"class_list":["post-11724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised","tag-bat","tag-brave","tag-brendan-eich","tag-david-hay","tag-jackson-palmer","tag-tom-scott"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11724"}],"version-history":[{"count":31,"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11724\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16502,"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11724\/revisions\/16502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}