Brave browser faces huge blowback from publishing industry

by Malcolm · April 7, 2016

Upcoming bitcoin-using Brave web browser’s CEO Brendan Eich was likely aware that he’d receive some ‘love’ letters from unhappy publishers when he released Brave’s plan to replace their Ads with ones Brave chooses instead; but he probably wasn’t expecting it to be this fast nor this big.

17 of the largest newspapers, including the NY Times, Washington Post, and many others who are all members of the Newspaper Association of America, together with their subsidiaries represent more like 1,200 newspapers in the US alone, have sent an official Cease and Desist notice to Brave, threatening to seek damages of up to $150,000 per work that Brave browser replaces ads on.

“You are hereby notified that Brave’s plan to replace our clients’ paid advertising content with its own advertising violates the law … Your plan to use our content to sell your advertising is indistinguishable from a plan to steal our content to publish on your own website.” -C&D letter from NAA

The publishers don’t sound thrilled with Brave’s “apparent plan to permit your customers to make Bitcoin “donations” to us,” and they “explicitly reject any compensation or consideration Brave plans to offer to us as part of its ad-blocking and ad-replacing scheme,” and they also “refuse to accept any “site wallet” that you propose to create for our supposed benefit.”

Eich seems undeterred in his response, however.

“The NAA sent a letter to Brave Software that is filled with false assertions. The NAA has fundamentally misunderstood Brave. Brave is the solution, not the enemy.” -Eich

The CEO explained how ad blockers are already stealing larger chunks of their income than Brave would, all the while inserting malware and causing major privacy violations that Brave will solve. “We give the lion’s share (pun intended), up to 70% of ad revenue, to websites, keeping only 15% for ourselves and paying 15% to our users,” he stated in the letter.

“We will fight alongside all citizens of the Internet who deserve and demand a better deal than they are getting from today’s increasingly abusive approach to Web advertising.” – Eich

If today’s internet comments are any indication, Brave will be popular and loved by most internet users, who are clearly sick enough of the present state of ads to happily use an ad blocker. However, if push comes to shove in this match, it is likely that Brave can block the content of publishers who opt out, allowing them time to see how much money they are missing out on.

Will the NAA publishers come around eventually?

Source: Business Insider