About Brave Web Browser Data Safety Report on Google Store

[Peter12138]

Hi there,

I’m Peter, a user of your Brave Private Web Browser app. I think it’s a really good browser with many useful features.

I noticed that recently almost all apps added a Data Safety Report on their Google Play Store homepage, but I found that you did not claim any data collection from me, which is pretty surprising from me. Then I read your privacy policy on your homepage, and I found following segments:

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Location

If you use Brave to visit a website that wants to determine your location, you will be asked whether you want it to be allowed to know where you are. If you click yes to this message, then the website will be sent an approximation of where you are based on your IP address. Your IP address will not be stored by Brave, but it may be stored by the website you have visited. See data processing detail.*

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reduce the amount of information sent to Google (for example, we remove your IP address) to protect against Google profiling or tracking you when using Safe Browsing

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I’m wondering if my Location data could be collected by you, should the data collection be such as: “collected, Location, optional”?

For the second segment, I noticed that you mention “No data shared with third parties”, but obviously you still share some data with Google.

If either problem exists, maybe you need to update your Data Safety Report to make your browser more “privacy” and “security” Or I’m really interested in the reasons.

Peter

[cynical13]

I think you’re following a very strict interpretation of data collection. Technically, clicking on a link or sending a search request to a search engine would technically count as Brave collecting and sending your data on to a third party, which is what a web browser does.

I would guess that they’re referring here to Brave not otherwise collecting your data through usage, not providing information to a web page provider, like Google or Amazon or Go Daddy. Brave isn’t grabbing your information to sell your data to advertisers. However, if you use Google Maps, for example, Google is going to ask for your location if you want to find restaurants close to you or if you want to get directions from your current location.