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Founder apologizes, community fork, Brave sparks controversy by using referral links to "recruit downlines"

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Founder apologizes, community fork, Brave sparks controversy by using referral links to "recruit downlines"

The privacy-focused next-generation browser Brave has been reported to interfere with users' search results. When users type "Binance," the browser automatically sets its referral link as the user's default search URL. The founder admitted the mistake and promised to rectify it immediately. As a result of this incident, the community announced yesterday the development of a forked version of the "Braver" browser.

Default Referral Links

A few days ago, a netizen revealed on Twitter that when users search for the cryptocurrency exchange Binance using the Brave browser, Brave's browser automatically sets their referral link as the default URL.

Referral systems are a common marketing tactic for exchanges. If someone registers on an exchange using your referral ID, you can earn a portion of their trading fees as a commission. Brave's behavior of setting default referral links has led many unaware users to unknowingly become part of someone's "downline."

Typically, such occurrences with browsers do not attract much attention. However, as a browser that emphasizes privacy and user rights, Brave's actions have sparked widespread discussions among netizens and the BAT community, leading to escalating controversies on Twitter and Reddit.

According to Brave browser's Github repository and multiple Twitter users, aside from Binance, search results on websites like Coinbase, Ledger, and Trezor wallets also redirect to specific referral invitation URLs.

Founder Promises Immediate Correction

Subsequently, Mozilla Foundation and Brave's co-founder Brendan Eich admitted the mistake and pledged to rectify it promptly by removing the automatically inserted referral ID.

"Brave will automatically preset a Binance.us referral code in the address bar. We are members of Binance and recommend users to use Binance through the trading widget on new tab pages. The default auto-complete feature of URLs should not add any code."

Community Announces Development of Forked Version

Brave's mission has always been user safety and privacy. This incident directly harmed the organization's reputation, ethics, and legitimacy, further raising community doubts about trust in Brave.

As a result, the Brave community announced yesterday that they will independently develop a forked version of Brave called Braver Browser. This forked version, built by the community, eliminates tokens, ads, and referral links. The version inherits Brave's existing features such as Web3, IPFS, DRM support, Adblocker, Tor, and Webtorrent, while removing incentivized mechanisms for watching ads, embedded links, the native BAT token, and ad images.

https://twitter.com/BraverBrowser/status/1269308318750838785

Both the Brave browser and its BAT token have gained significant popularity in the market. According to official announcements, Brave has surpassed 15 million monthly active users with a yearly growth rate exceeding 100%. Moreover, renowned podcast host Joe Rogan recently advocated for the adoption of Brave in his latest show. The current price of BAT has also returned to levels seen before the major drop in mid-March.

However, with such a damaging incident to the team's reputation, while it may not significantly impact the project's development, it still raises concerns about whether we will see more of these similar issues as the user base grows in the future.