this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2023
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At one point they were scummy enough to automatically add their referral codes to any Amazon link you see. Lots of people today still mindlessly recommend Brave, and that's what's wrong in general with the "but the UX is so nice" mentality.
It starts to feel astroturfed at a certain point. The last week or so has been crazy.
Its almost like UX is one of the most important things for a user of any given program. 🥴
What’s so bad about that?
It's without your consent.
Why the fuck should your browser get a share from your amazon shopping? It’s doubly galling since they pretend to care about user privacy.
If you really dig into the whole ordeal it was a software error, not some malicious idea to steal links from creators.
How exactly does one accidentally insert affiliate data on links? At some point someone wrote that code, which is malicious in itself, even if the activation was accidental.
It's also strange that it happened twice, first with amazon links, then they started injecting affiliate data for crypto platforms instead.
To be clear, that means Brave is ① invading their users' privacy, and ② stealing money from web publishers.
The point of referral codes is to reward web publishers for referring users to a product; leading to the user buying a product that they otherwise wouldn't.
Your browser isn't introducing you to a product. For it to insert referral codes for the browser vendor's benefit is stealing money.