The shady world of Brave selling copyrighted data for AI training

[Gandalf_The_Grey]

Content source

https://stackdiary.com/brave-selling-copyrighted-data-for-ai-training/

I know for a fact that Wikipedia operates under a CC BY-SA 4.0 license, which explicitly states that if you're going to use the data, you must give attribution. As far as search engines go, they can get away with it because linking back to a Wikipedia article on the same page as the search results is considered attribution.

But in the case of Brave, not only are they disregarding the license - they're also charging money for the data and then giving third parties "rights" to that data.

And don't get me wrong, I love Brave, and I've given them credit where it's due; it's also my understanding that the Brave Search API feature is new as a whole (released in May 2023), so perhaps it wasn't or hasn't been thought through completely.

I've asked for a comment from the Brave team on their thought process, so as soon as I have a statement, I will make sure to include it here.

The shady world of Brave selling copyrighted data for AI training

I'm fairly certain that I was not the only person in the world who thought to himself, "Did they just yoink the entire Internet and bundle it together

stackdiary.com

 

[I Walk MY Way]

ho Brave you bad boys

 

[TairikuOkami]

Brave is a silent Google’s branch, thus the reason it can block youtube ads and allow background playing on android.
It is literally #1 browser you move to, if you want to avoid Chrome. Well played. Also it’s shield can not be really disabled.

 

[ForgottenSeer 100397]

The shady world of Brave selling copyrighted data for AI training—It’s like they’re trying to train the robots to be just as sketchy as them!

 

[I Walk MY Way]

Is that the sound of people uninstalling Brave ? After all if they are willing to sell copyrighted data for AI training what might they do with your data?

 

[MuzzMelbourne]

Well, well...

...another one bites dust, huh...

 

[Trident]

What happened to Brave’s ethical facade? Is it starting to crack now?
Oh, that’s too bad…

 

[blackice]

Brave….shady…noooooooo…impossible…

 

[cofer123]

Cryptoscam browser doing shady stuff.
W-woah!

 

[jackuars]

I feel sorry for the paranoid users who switched from Microsoft/Google to Brave thinking it would give them the best privacy online. However, no matter what software you use, you will never have complete privacy on the internet. It's best to just forget about it and enjoy your online computing experience.

 

[ForgottenSeer 97327]

Privacy is a lost cause. Brave offers an alternative advertising scheme to Google, it is not better or worse, just different.

Here is some food for thought: on my Scandinavian round trip, I only used Firefox with Duck duck go on my mobile. Because
Android is Google developed, I have minimized rights and internet access, running constantly with data saving. I only have one page of apps and last 4 days with my phone battery. So I had not used Google search for a month.

When at home, I connected the router before I updated our PC'S I checked whether our internet connection was up (we are using Google search on Edge) and type in "latest news (in Dutch)", gues what shows as 6th and 7th search result? The football transfer articles of Dutch and English soccer teams. Scarry fact was that I was reading those artcles on Nos.nl and BBC.com on our last driving break in Bremen on my Android phone (on Firefox with Duckduckgo).

Maybe just a coincidence, but reminds me of the fameus "we are the Borg, we will assimilate you, all your data belongs to us"

 

[MuzzMelbourne]

Privacy is a lost cause...

Yeah, I think I've taken every practical step to minimise data exposure and very rarely get targeted ads, but when I do its obviously traceable back to Google's network of activity trackers.

I find it creepy and a little annoying, but it really is the price of access to what is, largely, a pretty amazing free service.

 

[Ink]

Brave shouldn’t take all the credit for being Evil. /s

Remember that Brave acquired Tailcat from Cliqz to develop their Brave Search engine. Cliqz had the Human Web, before Brave had its Web Discovery Project. WDP is inspired by HW.

Web Discovery Project is a methodology and system developed by Brave but heavily inspired by Cliqz's Human Web, we recommend to check the blog post as additional material even though there are, and will be, significant departures as WDP evolves.

Web Discovery Project is a methodology and system developed by Brave to collect data generated by their users while protecting their privacy and anonymity.

Brave needs data to power its privacy search. This data, provided by Brave users, is collected in a very different way than typical data collection.

Source: web-discovery-project/modules/web-discovery-project/sources/README.md at main · brave/web-discovery-project

Human Web—Collecting data in a socially responsible manner

Measures to prevent record linking & privacy leaks.

0x65.dev

The Web Discovery Project is a privacy-preserving way for you to contribute to the growth and independence of Brave Search. […]

If you opt-in to the Web Discovery Project, your browser will […]

Source: https://support.brave.com/hc/en-us/articles/4409406835469-What-is-the-Web-Discovery-Project-

 

[Arequire]

Brave offers an alternative advertising scheme to Google, it is not better or worse, just different.

I'd argue it is better, in that it's opt-in and privacy-preserving (not sold on the use of system notifications as the delivery method though). But I'm also open to the argument that advertising itself is a problem.

 

[blackice]

I’d argue that wanting free websites with no ads was the problem. Ads got worse because less people were seeing them (though there are other variables that contributed) and now every website is moving to subscriptions. We can’t afford to subscribe to all of these things. I’d have just preferred the old ads. I don’t see advertising as offensive, just the plastering of terrible ads that ruin the experience.

 

[I Walk MY Way]

I would say that greed is the problem as long as you have access to large amounts of data and you are willing to sell it There will always be plenty of buyers, most of whom won't worry about how you got the data in the first place, there is no Room nowadays for Morals, ethics, or anything else Even copyright data.

 

[Arequire]

I’d argue that wanting free websites with no ads was the problem. Ads got worse because less people were seeing them (though there are other variables that contributed) and now every website is moving to subscriptions. We can’t afford to subscribe to all of these things. I’d have just preferred the old ads. I don’t see advertising as offensive, just the plastering of terrible ads that ruin the experience.

The problem with the old ad formats is that we stopped noticing them, which was evidently unacceptable to the ad industry. Once people started developing banner blindness (something that is naturally occurring, I remind you) and click-through rates dropped, the industry started adopting garbage formats (pop-ups, pop-unders, animated, autoplay video/audio, etc.), and plastering ads everywhere, which drove people to adopt ad blockers and the rest is history.

The industry only has itself to blame, because even back in the old days when we accepted ads as part of the 'deal' for being able to access websites for free, it still wasn't good enough.

 

[ScandinavianFish]

Strange how no one seem to take note of the ideology behind these shady business practices, it's like we never learn, we keep complaining about problems that only we ourselves can solve.

 

[MuzzMelbourne]

''...there is no Room nowadays for Morals, ethics, or anything else Even copyright data..."

We are talking about marketing here. I would argue these issues were 'flexible' at best at any stage of the industry's history.

 

[Sandbox Breaker - DFIR]

Brave is a silent Google’s branch, thus the reason it can block youtube ads and allow background playing on android.
It is literally #1 browser you move to, if you want to avoid Chrome. Well played. Also it’s shield can not be really disabled.

Your very Brave!