Unsolicited Advertisements from Brave Rewards / Respecting the User's Choices

[resynth1943]

Description

This is getting a little silly now, guys.

I appreciate the privacy benefits of Brave, but I don't really want to play whack-a-mole with Brave's forceful corporate advertising on random pages, without me giving any form of consent.

This was enabled shortly after installing an update for Brave; I did not consent to having these enabled.

After disabling your (frankly rather invasive) cryptocurrency features 15 times, I think we need to draw a line: how many more advertisements are you going to add? How many more options?

I've also had advertisements from Brave randomly re-enable themselves, after loading the program.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Go to GitHub.com in Brave
2. Disable literally every option for Brave Rewards you can find
3. See 'Tip' buttons!

Expected result:

The advertisements do not show after I say 'no' 15 times.

Actual result

The advertisements appear without user consent.

Reproduces how often:

Brave version (brave://version info)

Brave	1.18.70 Chromium: 87.0.4280.101 (Official Build) (64-bit)
Revision	9407c80213cda69c2b7abcb4fa8e3f74488f4956-refs/branch-heads/4280@{#1807}
OS	Linux
JavaScript	V8 8.7.220.29
Flash	(Disabled)
User Agent	Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/87.0.4280.101 Safari/537.36
Command Line	/opt/brave.com/brave/brave --enable-dom-distiller --disable-domain-reliability --no-pings --extension-content-verification=enforce_strict --extensions-install-verification=enforce --origin-trial-public-key=[redacted] --sync-url=https://sync-v2.brave.com/v2 --lso-url=https://no-thanks.invalid --variations-server-url=https://variations.brave.com/seed --enable-features=WebUIDarkMode,AutoupgradeMixedContent,PrefetchPrivacyChanges,PasswordImport,ReducedReferrerGranularity,LegacyTLSEnforced,DnsOverHttps --disable-features=AutofillServerCommunication,IdleDetection,SignedExchangeSubresourcePrefetch,SafeBrowsingEnhancedProtection,TextFragmentAnchor,PrivacySettingsRedesign,TabHoverCards,NotificationTriggers,SmsReceiver,VideoPlaybackQuality,AllowPopupsDuringPageUnload,AutofillEnableAccountWalletStorage,NetworkTimeServiceQuerying,PasswordCheck --flag-switches-begin --enable-gpu-rasterization --enable-features=WebUIDarkMode,AutoupgradeMixedContent,PrefetchPrivacyChanges,PasswordImport,ReducedReferrerGranularity,LegacyTLSEnforced,DnsOverHttps,ContentSettingsRedesign,LiteVideo --flag-switches-end
Executable Path	/opt/brave.com/brave/brave
Profile Path	/home/resynth/.config/BraveSoftware/Brave-Browser/Default

Version/Channel Information:

• Can you reproduce this issue with the current release? Yes.
• Can you reproduce this issue with the beta channel?
• Can you reproduce this issue with the nightly channel?

Other Additional Information:

• Does the issue resolve itself when disabling Brave Shields? No.
• Does the issue resolve itself when disabling Brave Rewards? No.
• Is the issue reproducible on the latest version of Chrome? No.

Miscellaneous Information:

In all respect, I think your company need to respect people's boundaries and listen to the word 'no'. As I've disabled Rewards in every configurable setting option, I'm gobsmacked as to why it continues to appear.

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Search keywords: spam; ads; advertising; rewards; tips; github; twitter; reddit; consent; send a tip; advertisement

[johnbillion]

I just updated to 1.18.70 and I'm seeing "Tip" buttons despite having them all switched off under the Brave Rewards -> Tips setting.

I understand that free software needs to find a revenue model, but this is invasive and disrespectful of your users, and that makes for poor software that users will not tolerate for long. I doubt that Reddit, Twitter, and GitHub are too happy about it either.

[emerick]

@resynth1943 @johnbillion Can you disable all of the options under "Tips" in brave://rewards (e.g. Reddit, Twitter, Github), close Brave, verify that there are no other running Brave processes (rebooting the system might be safest here, if possible), and then check if you still see the tipping buttons?

[resynth1943]

@emerick while I can appreciate that you've added an option for this, I still don't think it should be enabled by default, especially when I've disabled it literally everywhere.

Introducing new options, then expecting us to keep disabling these is morally questionable at best, and extremely pernicious at worst. Instead of constantly telling you 'no', I'd like to tell you no once, then not be pestered with 'rewards' any further.

So, to fix this, I'd like to suggest one option for disabling Rewards, then not have to fight enabled-by-default options any longer.

This corporate nagging is fundamentally at odds with the user, and I sincerely hope you're not going to mark this as 'working as intended' with your proposed fix.

[emerick]

@resynth1943 Sure, understood. I'll bring that up with the team, appreciate the feedback.

[diracdeltas]

can this be merged into #13157?

[resynth1943]

@diracdeltas while this issue does highlight the "Send a Tip" issue, I like to think that it pushes an important general point, in that Brave needs to respect the user's choices, and respect negative consent (instead of this whole 'But you can disable it!' mentality).

[chrisgagne]

These tips are unwelcome, undesirable behavior. I could not find any settings to hide tips when searching the settings for "Tip." I spent several minutes looking and could not figure out how to disable it. One more stunt like this and Brave goes in the bin for good.

[ghost]

@chrisgagne You have to go to the Rewards Panel (you have to unhide it if you have hidden it in settings) in the address bar > settings > Tips and uncheck everything in it.

[johnbillion]

I can confirm that shutting down and restarting Brave resulted in the Rewards settings being applied as expected. The buttons are now gone again.

I'll echo others' concerns in this thread that having multiple options hidden away on multiple different settings screens isn't user friendly.

[houruomu]

The default behavior of adding a "Tip" buttons to Github/Twitter pages is too intrusive. Adding content to pages without clear consent is really bad, and it reminds me of the behavior of many old-day Adwares that hijack HTTP traffic and insert their ads. I believe this is very detrimental to Brave as it pitches itself mostly to privacy sensitive users.

[ghost]

If brave keeps adding these to promote Brave Rewards then I promise I'll stop using this browser! I mean, I am an advanced user and I can disable these things if I want to but what about others who don't know how to do it?! I already recommended this browser to others, I need to take responsibility for them, right? You cannot use them however you want. I'll never recommend this browser to anyone from now on.

You already enable New Tab sponsered images on Android from the get go, enable "Brave today" on desktop by default, add a persistent Brave Rewards icon in address bar by default and a persistent Brave Rewards menu entry in the 3-dot main menu on Android and desktop, send your intrusive so-called "Privacy report" notification with vibration enabled, the homepage on the desktop is filled with ads to promote crypto currency companies which takes so many clicks to disable, etc.

Can you please stop adding all these Dark Patterns to your browser's UX? I thought Brave Rewards was opt-in and the user chooses to enable them, I never thought it would be like this.

I also used to use Brave Rewards until now and I'll stop it now...next thing would be Brave browser itself.

You are no different than other browsers if I have to set-up the browser disabling things I want by following one thousand settings then you're the same as Chrome or even Firefox. I'll just use those browsers, why would I use Brave browser?

I have lost faith in Brave browser now. This ongoing trend is the same as other big companies, I can already see where this is going to end, you are no different than others...

[resynth1943]

Hi @emerick, are we any closer to getting this disabled by default?

[bsclifton]

cc: @marshall @Miyayes

[chrisgagne]

@chrisgagne You have to go to the Rewards Panel (you have to unhide it if you have hidden it in settings) in the address bar > settings > Tips and uncheck everything in it.

I eventually figured it out. It should not have been that hard, especially having to re-enable a disabled feature to disable more of that feature that should have never been enabled by default in the first place. Even still, why doesn’t searching for “Tip” in the settings reveal this setting? This reeks of asshole design to me. Very corporate and anti-user. :(

[Hazbelll]

I don't honestly understand why Rewards are even integrated into the browser at this point. Why can't they be an add-on/extension? Honestly, it would be best to keep the browser component to just that: A browser.

Why not make Rewards a separate add-on/extension that co-exists with the browser component. Of course, entry-points to read more about/install Rewards in the browser would be fine, as long as they're not invasive (Offering to install/enable it at first-time setup would be fine too, similar to how it currently does).

Likewise this might be easier to maintain having their codebase separate from each other. It could also help shift the stigma some have regarding mixing the Browser and Cryptocurrency elements together (It's already questionable most bugs/features reported here aren't favoured unless related to Rewards).

Brave as a browser is better than anything else available currently. It's Chrome, but without the Google bits, but still otherwise Chrome. Please don't neglect that, you could seriously be onto something here. If money is an issue, allow people to donate directly to the project so you have more funds to pump back into the browser/rewards to get them up to scratch!

Plus, with a rock solid browser as a base, any other ventures such as Rewards and other projects by Brave that link into it would be a lot more desirable for the unsure user (Like myself) who aren't confident in Brave Rewards because they're not confident in the actual browser as it currently stands.

Of course, this is only my two cents. I appreciate the work the Brave Team do, the browser is otherwise fantastic, but I don't think it's heading in the right direction as things currently stand. A real shame as this has to be the best browser I've used since Firefox first came around, but bugs and more importantly; the poor design decisions around it are holding it back.

[resynth1943]

Hey @emerick any update on this? I see other related issues are closed, so I thought I'd drop in again and query you here.

Judging by the above responses, it seems that you've enabled this feature without due dilligence and input from your community (which is not welcomed in FOSS). This is disappointing nevertheless, but I'd like to move towards a resolution on this issue.

The general consensus (+ my opinion) seems to be that this should be enabled on new installs, but it should not be enabled on non-new installs after an update (without any sort of warning beforehand). Furthermore, the option to disable this advertising should be made clear to the user, instead of being hidden in secretive menus in different pages across the browser chrome / UI.

When this option is enabled, the browser should give a clear prompt which asks the user if they actually want it enabled, instead of playing hide-and-seek with various configuration options.

Seeing as this issue is gaining attention by the day (and I've helpfully publicised it on various open-source platforms), I think it would be wise to listen to your community on this one, and move forward on that basis, instead of designing your browser around corporate advertising and mistrust.

I've been pinging you throughout this issue, and I've received nothing. Quite frankly, it's starting to seem like you don't want to acknowledge this problem, without closing the issue altogether (which would yield even more bad publicity).

Thanks,
Resynth

[emerick]

Hi @resynth1943, we created #13341 recently to keep the inline tipping buttons hidden for users who've already chosen to opt out of Rewards. That issue still needs to go through triage and be assigned, but it's on the team's radar as is your additional feedback.

[resynth1943]

Hi @emerick, thanks for your response, and many thanks for the linked issue.

The proposed solution in #13341 solves one of my issues with Rewards, so we're off to an excellent start. I implore the community to step in and leave their feedback on it, as have I.