Publishers call Brave's privacy-centric browser "illegal"; Brave responds

I just find it disappointing that any conversation about Brave the browser and what it may accomplish or be trying to do immediately devolves into discussions of Brendan Eich instead.

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I think that’s a fair point. But I also think it’s a fair point to say that people get to decide which products they use/consume/support based on the public activism of people who create those products. You may decide to use this, and that’s your choice, but for others - no matter how great or useful what he made is - I don’t think it’s beyond the pale to point out his political activities in order for others to make their own choices.

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There is; but you’d probably need an accountant and some nontrivial details on the company to know whether it is salient or not.

With the possible exception of some of the people who actually say “taxation is slavery” with a straight face, and believe it, who may in fact have no meaningful distinction between themselves as hominids and themselves as collections of financial instruments; people are not identical to even things they exercise complete personal ownership over.(and not just in the Fight Club ‘you are not your…’ rant sense).

However, that’s not terribly relevant if your only relationship with somebody is likely to be a commercial one. If “Brave Software, Inc.” bears roughly the same relationship to “Brendan Eich” as the contents of my wallet do to me; then any interaction with it in a commercial context is about as close to being an interaction with Brendan Eich as a commercial context will allow. If the ownership structure is such that he’s basically just one of the code monkeys; but gets top billing in PR material because people have heard of him; then my commercial interactions with Brave Inc. are almost entirely not interactions with Brendan Eich; but with whoever actually has a nontrivial ownership stake in the company.

Since Brave Software Inc. is a privately held Delaware corporation; it’s a trifle hard to say with much confidence exactly where on this scale the company falls. It might be pretty much his show; he might be just one of the more visible peons. in an entity owned by someone else entirely.

To be clear, I have no desire to replace one ad network with another. :slight_smile:
I block all ads and use Firefox to do it.

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I suspect he owns quite a bit of it but who knows how much? He had to lure other people to join him as founders and then there are employees that they hire.

I’m a firefox dude too! The point was less about you, and more about the ability of people being able to make choices based on their personal morality.

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?

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I just like the word dude.

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I’ve had coworkers that get very mad if you say “hey guys” or “dude” at work because of gender issues so… :slight_smile:

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I understand that… I’ve used “you guys” my whole life (my dad’s family is from Jersey) and dude… is, well dude. But that’s just me and my weirdness.

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Deciding to contribute to one side or another of a ballot initiative is most certainly the expression of a political opinion.

Ballot propositions to ban gay marriage are fundamentally distinct from Congressional pressure, and communism isn’t the same as homosexuality.

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The point I am trying to make here is that people who believe that those with whom they disagree should be hounded from the public square, and furthermore that they should be hounded from legal employment, probably never, ever, ever think that similar hounding might some day be applied to them.

But yeah, trying to make that point is probably a waste of time here on BB. Guess I’ll head over to Weisberger’s next motorcycle thread.

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I don’t think that by pointing out his political contributions (which went to a cause that actively worked to curtail the rights of other human beings) isn’t “hounding him” from the public square. I, @jellywish, and I’m sure others would like to decide how we spend our time/money, and not give it to him, precisely because we don’t like what he did. Allowing other people to make informed choices is not “hounding”… it’s informing.

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Uh-huh. Personally, I like Triumphs much better than Harleys.

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So the title of this post was “Brendan Eich gives money to Prop 8” and wasn’t “Publishers call Brave’s privacy-centric browser “illegal”; Brave responds”.

That explains why the majority of the posts here aren’t discussing Brave or the potential lawsuit it may wind up in or its model for online advertising.

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Okay. For the record, we’re still talking about the product and it’s use, even if it’s not the same context as the original post. But I’ll shut it. I can’t speak for @jellywish, who began this tangent.

I’m not sure what that means and am taking it as dismissive on your part, so just never mind me trying to respectfully state that consumers should be able to make informed choices, too.

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Well, except we’re not. Any attempts to do so inevitably return to discussions of Eich and his personal political donations instead.

I block a lot of sites at the router. Come and get me bro!

It’s so weird how some of us take it personally when someone wants to pass laws to dissolve our marriages, threaten our parental status with regard to our children, endanger our right to pass our property on to our family members when we die, and generally strip our families of legal protections so that we are left paying lawyers to try to regain that protection (if we can afford it) and still having the safety of our families in question.

Yes, Brendan Eich deserves to have a job. Just not with my money or support. If you have to ask “why does everything have to be about that issue,” you’re probably not someone who’s had to watch his government go out of its way to attack him.

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