ADVs from the reward program have wrong and misleading categorisation

[unlucio]

I genuinely love Brave’s idea to try to make ADVs actually useful (and maybe less annoying) for everybody. While I generally really despise ADV, I was more than happy to join the Brave Reward program.
That said in all these months the only ADs I got are ALL financial stuff (often borderline scammy).
Checking under brave://rewards/ they’re pretty much all misleadingly categorized as “technology & computing”, “science” or even “hobbies & interests”.
as you can see in the following video:

While I am interested in tech/science/etc and would probably be fine (again I’m not a fan of ADV so allowing myself to be targetted by it is a big step out of my comfort zone) with receiving announcements on breakthrough discoveries and innovations, I’m not exactly what I would call a “finance fan or enthusiast” and I really would do great without those ADs.
I dully spent some time during the last 6 months reviewing the ADs I got served and “thumbing down” those I didn’t want in the hope I wouldn’t be served those kinds of ADs again. Well, I guess I was wrong because that’s all I’m still getting.

Before leaving the Rewards program for good I thought it might be useful to report this bad experience as I’m most likely not the only one feeling this way and this whole thing might hinder Brave’s adoption and ultimately its mission.

• I would expect Ads categorization to be more accurate and faithful to the real content of the AD
• I would expect to be able to influence, and perhaps select, ADs I’m targeted with through the Rewards program so they don’t annoy the heck out of me and push me to evaluate other browsers.
• I would also expect Brave to take more care in selecting its advertisers and the ADs it serves to the end-user
• I would expect to be able to trust Brave enough to give it to my old parents and be sure they’re not gonna be served potential click bites or scam

What Operating System and Brave version are you using (Menu --> About Brave)?
Currently using:
Brave 1.27.109 Chromium: 92.0.4515.115 (Official Build) (x86_64)
Revision 48cb2f4029b84b003719740a6cf9ca73f374a857-refs/branch-heads/4515_105@{#4}
OS macOS Version 11.5.1 (Build 20G80)
JavaScript V8 9.2.230.20
Variations AdRewardsStudy:NextPaymentDay
EphemeralStorageStudy:Enabled
MacCoreLocationBackendStudy:Enabled
NativeCosmeticFilteringStudy:Enabled
PermissionLifetimeReleaseStudy:Enabled

Is your browser wallet currently verified? (yes/no)
No

What date did you verify your wallet?
Not yet

Have you been able to successfully receive payments in the past?
Never tried

Are you using a VPN? (yes/no)
Usually No

Are you in a supported region (see here for list of supported regions)?
Yes

Does your device pass the SafteyNet check (Android only)?
I don’t use android

[carrignon]

Brave doesn’t really have that much variety of advertisers - most of them are hijacking Brave as a platform for the crypto hype-train.

So understandably, Brave devs probably said f* it, and attached a random number generator to the field-value for ad categories, just to satisfy the Rewards product manager who insisted on having “ad categories”.

[unlucio]

I agree, that is definitely plausible, tho from a user’s perspective I think the problem still stands: the danger for Brave to become the “browser where fishing and scams happen” is even more prominent, and fundamentally already happening.
While I never had any doubts that this is happening for the mere reason of “making money”, I feel like it would be nice to know where brave stands.
To me it can def make or break the deal:

• if anything goes I will turn rewards off
• if it’s a “momentary glitch” and they’re thinking/working on address it, I might give it another chance later on.

It’s a pitty because the base idea is still interesting, but it’s hard to give it to someone knowing they’re most likelly gonna be pull in a scam

PS: I don’t think crypto based currencies are a scam per se, but I do think the current craze and speculation are likelly to expose people to problems more often than not and targetting them wiht a lot of this kind of advertising is quite bad. Specialli when they’re not given a choice.