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Brave puts affiliated links in the address bar

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Contents4
  1. Incident
  2. Brave Software's response
  3. Consumer response
  4. References

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Incident

In June 2020, it was discovered that when users typed 'binance.us' into the address bar, they were suggested the URL binance.us/en?ref=35089877, which included a referral code for Brave Software, Inc.[1]

Brave Software's response

The issue was later addressed publicly by Brave's founder and CEO, Brendan Eich, who apologized and referred to the incident as a "mistake", stating that "autocomplete should not add any code" and that the lack of disclosure was "the big problem".[2]

The fix was shipped two days after the original incident, in stable release v1.9.80 on 8 June 2020, which set "Show Brave suggested sites in autocomplete suggestions" to off by default.[3]

The following day, Brave published a blog post with an apology, stating their intention was to offer an "alternative completion is an affiliate-coded URL for a specific Ledger product, which the user is free to select or ignore".[4]

Consumer response

Summary and key issues of prevailing sentiment from the consumers and commentators that can be documented via articles, emails to support, reviews and forum posts.

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References

  1. ↑ CR1337 (6 Jun 2020). "CR1337 on X". X. Archived from the original on 21 Mar 2026. Retrieved 8 Aug 2026.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  2. ↑ Eich, Brendan (6 Jun 2020). "Brendan Eich on X". X. Archived from the original on 21 Mar 2026. Retrieved 8 Aug 2026.
  3. ↑ "Release Channel v1.9.80". GitHub. 8 Jun 2020. Archived from the original on 10 Jun 2020. Retrieved 8 Aug 2026.
  4. ↑ "On Partner Referral Codes in Brave Suggested Sites". Brave. 9 Jun 2020. Archived from the original on 16 Apr 2024. Retrieved 8 Aug 2026.
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