Brave is one of the few privacy centred browsers that also happens to be crypto-friendly. However, in the recent turn of events, Brave has come under fire for redirecting user searches to different crypto companies under the affiliate link program and earning profit from that, as well.
The companies in question are Binance, Coinbase, as well as Trezor, and more. This certainly seems like a breach of user's trust and confidence, especially those who are looking to find themselves using something that is good and private. Considering how internet privacy has become a very important thing.
Brave Under Fire for Breaching the Trust of Users by Redirecting Search Results to Crypto Companies
With Google recently being sued for tracking private users data, a lot of people are inclined to put their trust in browsers that do not have the same indulgence. However, it seems that it has become all about choosing the lesser evil.
Brave has nearly 15 million monthly users, and none of them was ever asked for consent about this. Which means that there was no idea of opting in or out of this practice. Brave just took liberty and went ahead with it.
The news went viral when a Twitter user by the name Cryptonator1337 revealed the following information.
So when you are using the @brave browser and type in "binance[.]us" you end up getting redirected to "binance[.]us/en?ref=35089877" - I see what you did there mates 😂
— CR1337 (@cryptonator1337) June 6, 2020
From there, this news just took off, and it was discovered that Brave had been doing this for a number of different websites that we have mentioned before. Things didn't just stop there as more redirect links were unearthed.
Looks like it’s not a very isolated mistake. Brave also does this for Ledger, Trezor and Coinbase if you look in their Github https://t.co/8PpnlS5jAu https://t.co/JGQ7d23fer pic.twitter.com/keorBZiDJL
— Larry Cermak (@lawmaster) June 6, 2020
Brave's CEO Brendan Eich decided to issue an apology on his Twitter account, stating how he is sad about it too. However, he did not provide further clarification about the issue. He did, however, provide a justification that you can check below.
1/ We made a mistake, we're correcting: Brave default autocompletes verbatim "https://t.co/hJd0ePInEw" in address bar to add an affiliate code. We are a Binance affiliate, we refer users via the opt-in trading widget on the new tab page, but autocomplete should not add any code.
— BrendanEich (@BrendanEich) June 6, 2020
Last but not the least, he went on and talked about how they will not be adding any more links in the future. Which is certainly a good move to earn user's trust.
FWIW there's a setting to disable the autocomplete defaults that add affiliate codes, in brave://settings first page. Current plan is to flip default to off as shown here. You can disable ahead of our release schedule if you want to. Good to hear from supporters who'll enable it. pic.twitter.com/ZgOpSsOLnX
— BrendanEich (@BrendanEich) June 6, 2020
Do you think this decision by Brave to not add any more affiliate links is a good one or are you going to jump ship and use a different browser?
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