Hi,
posted a week ago on the feedback section (Privacy concern and self tipping) but got no answer or feedback.
So I’ll ask here, probably this is the right section.
Basically I’m a bit concerned about privacy when it comes to rewards. Not wondering about how Brave is able to send ads ( i saw other discussions, so that’s not the point here ) but how Brave manages self tipping.
So in the past days I was reading policies about self tipping and support told me that is forbidden.
For that reason i see there is no option to cash out tokens on mobile at the moment, and not sure if it’s something on a road map or not. Support just told me “we are working on it”, no more.
Besides that, I was trying to get more info on what is considered self tipping and how: when I asked (here Creator not receiving tips and brave not showing anymore ads ) if tipping from my mobile devices to my contributor account is self tipping, i received “Yes, it is self tipping” as answer.
Important note: i added to my question that mobiles are not linked in any way with my desktop and also use differents networks and ips (because both devices have their own sim card).
So I’m just wondering how Brave can identify my self tipping and what Brave stores or read to do it.
Is there more information about that to read?
Because i’m starting to have some concern on what Brave stores about my navigation or my mobiles info and how it is used to link different devices to each other.
Can someone point me in the right direction? ( threads, docs, whatever about it) Or even better explain how it works?
Here’s how Brave can identify self tipping if you try to use one of Brave’s User Growth Pool grants.
Each time Brave sends users a monthly gift of BAT it makes a record of their IP addresses that can be analysed to safeguard against fraud. Brave checks to see whether we are currently offering tokens to Brave users. This request includes the identifier of your unique Rewards wallet.
I believe they also have other systems to detect other kinds of fraudulent activity. There are threads with people who have had BAT suspended on suspicion of different kinds of fraud; from a large number of referrals to a large influx of tips from new users.
There is currently some contradiction regarding self tipping, that hopefully the Brave team can address. Both of the following responses are from official employees, one of them says that even if your account is cleared of suspicion, you won’t get your BAT, while the other says that while it might take some legwork, they’ll be able to handle your case.
We recommend at this point that you do not self tip AT ALL.
Doing so will very likely get your account suspended, and even if you are cleared, there will be no way to get back that BAT you self-tipped.
Self-tipping to circumvent the lack of withdrawal options is not recommended, but it is not against the rules. (Rules against self-tipping only apply to “free trial promotional token grants”, not BAT that you’ve earned for viewing ads.) We don’t recommend or encourage self-tipping with one’s own ad earnings because it might still activate our automatic fraud detection filters. If you self-tip, please be prepared to explain your situation in case your creators account is flagged or suspended. The suspensions team will be able to handle your case, though it will require manual review.
My response ran a bit long, and I forgot to answer being able to withdraw BAT on mobile. If you use an android device you’ll soon be able to link it to an Uphold account, and withdraw your tokens through it, shouldn’t take past June. If you use iOS, this functionality is still a couple of months away.
If you’re willing to wait a little bit you can avoid the convoluted mess that is self-tipping.
But saving the ip address won’t answer to my question as I said i use different devices on different networks ( so not sharing any IP ).
So do Brave tracks anything else? Or maybe it tracks an history of ip and matching all of them to see if different devices used in the past (how long in the past?) the same ip?
And in that case, if a friend came at my house and used my wifi, it means he will never be allowed to tip any of my content?
So, being a privacy first browser, it must be clear how it works and why IMHO.
I’m ok waiting for mobile linking, but i’m still confused on what Brave is tracing on me and my data.
So the point in this thread is not how to cash out from mobile, but how privacy is managed on the self tipping algorithm.