Security News > 2020 > June > Brave CEO apologises for adding affiliate links to URLs

The Brave browser has provoked unhappiness among some of its users after being caught redirecting searches to affiliate links that earned it commission.

What this means is that Brave users searching for Binance, a cryptocurrency exchange, would have had their query autocompleted so that they ended up on a special version of the Binance homepage that lets the company know that Brave's address bar was the origin of that visit.

Then there is newcomer Brave, which has styled itself as being an outsider and an innovator, right down to launching an entire Brave platform that hands out 'attention tokens' to users in return for consuming advertising.

Sending autocompleted search traffic to affiliates would have earned Brave fractions of a cent for each user who made that journey but without revealing anything about the user.

Because of its 'we are different' marketing, Brave has always been judged by higher standards.

News URL

https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2020/06/09/brave-ceo-apologises-for-adding-affiliate-links-to-urls/