Welcome to this week’s BAT Community Update! Thank you to Dan Murphy for his contributions!

AMA: Upcoming guest AMA with Alex Gladstein, Chief Strategy Officer at the Human Rights Foundation (July 31, 2019)

The AMA will take place on r/BATProject on Wednesday, July 31st, 2019 from 9-30 – 10:30 am PST.



About the Human Rights Foundation:



The Human Rights Foundation is a New York-based non-profit that promotes and protects human rights and civil liberties in closed societies around the world. HRF specifically focuses its energy and resources on supporting rights advocates, dissidents, journalists, and social entrepreneurs living under authoritarian governments. Today, there are more than 4 billion people living under some type of authoritarian regime across 90 countries. HRF’s priorities include legal advocacy, direct support for NGOs at risk, public education about democracy and dictatorship, and a focus on technology as a liberation tool for those living under political repression.



Ps. You may have seen HRF ads while browsing with Brave!



Read Alex’s bio and submit questions for the AMA here: https://www.reddit.com/r/BATProject/comments/ci4tph/upcoming_guest_ama_with_alex_gladstein_chief/

EVENT: BAT & Brave are an official gold sponsor of the Blockchain Futurist Conference 2019 (08/12-14) in Toronto, Canada (Get 50% off your ticket with code “BRAVE50”)!

Untraceable’s Futurist Conference is the largest and most high profile blockchain event in Canada. It brings together over 2300 attendees from around the globe to discuss the future of technology including blockchain, artificial intelligence, and other emerging tech that will disrupt our future.



The event will be held at the Rebel Arena and will have 3 stages, 2 levels of exhibitor booths and a Cabana VIP area for networking and deal-making. Brave’s very own Christopher Nguyen, Technical Operations Coordinator on the BAT Team, will be a panelist on the Future of Privacy talk, taking place on August 13 at 2pm. Futurist will be one of the most immersive, experiential, and highly engaging technology events you will ever attend and Brave is proud to be a sponsor.

Get your tickets here: https://www.futurist19.com/

VIDEO INTERVIEW: Brendan Eich (Brave CEO) appears on Privacy Now

Brendan Eich, the creator of JavaScript – the code behind most of what you see online – believes the internet has lost its way. And he’s got a plan to get it back on track. For starters? “Chlorinate the pool” by blocking all ad tracking, says Eich, now CEO of privacy-first browser Brave. And that’s just the first step.

BAT Community Merch Giveaway Winners!

The winners for our BAT Community Daily Merch Giveaways for this week are:

Monday (Reddit): HitchhikingToNirvana

Tuesday (Twitter): @lairdb990

Wednesday (Facebook): Jhon Paul Bautista

Click here to see pics of previous giveaway winners rocking their BAT/Brave merch!: https://imgur.com/a/lhF1G9I



Be sure to tune in to our social media channels every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and Friday to participate in our daily merch giveaways for your chance to win!

Client Updates

Beta Channel v0.67.112

https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/releases/tag/v0.67.112

Dev Channel v0.68.104

https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/releases/tag/v0.68.104

Release Channel v0.66.101

https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/releases/tag/v0.66.101

Brave Team Tweets

In today's "Privacy Now" episode with @MikeFeibus (industry analyst and columnist at USA Today & CIO Mag), @BrendanEich discusses Brave, BAT, reforming online advertising and tracking, and why users must defend their data. Watch here: https://t.co/zpgRWYpk1J pic.twitter.com/NdV6HaH9dS — BasicAttentionToken (@AttentionToken) July 25, 2019

We are adding takeout ability in 0.69, but the default is what most people want: to donate back to their favorite creators. That more than replaces lost ad revenue, especially for our users who don’t click on ads and ignore most, or who use a thorough blocker on other browsers, — BrendanEich (@BrendanEich) July 20, 2019 If you’d like, you can soon take out your BAT…

We are adding takeout ability in 0.69, but the default is what most people want: to donate back to their favorite creators. That more than replaces lost ad revenue, especially for our users who don’t click on ads and ignore most, or who use a thorough blocker on other browsers, — BrendanEich (@BrendanEich) July 20, 2019 Getting paid for your attention is just getting started.

And we are just getting started — with scale and ad deals filling all user-consent based inventory, how high could we go? We aim for high CPX already. This is nothing like the programmatic, low and dropping, spray and pray CPM adtech killing publishers today. — BrendanEich (@BrendanEich) July 20, 2019

Getting paid for your attention is just getting started.

We are quite familiar. Think of BAT as the token for an open system (more than Brave as app, in due course) doing private/native programmatic in the browser or similarly web-tied (podcast, video player, game with in-app ads) apps. — BrendanEich (@BrendanEich) July 22, 2019 What else could BAT tie into? Brendan enlightens.

Why do you think we can defy laws and common sense re: fraud? If we let anyone take tokens w/o KYC or better, we'd be defrauded into the ground, and stopped cold by regulators in many regions.



If you want p2p blockchain send, go do it. Few receivers among https://t.co/5vgjIVsHFc — BrendanEich (@BrendanEich) July 23, 2019

We have a list of casino/gaming advertisers that have expressed interest, but are currently in a holding pattern.



2 reasons:



1. We are working on additional feedback features and settings to opt-out of categories and thumbs-up/down ads.



2. Regional regulation + current geos — Luke Mulks (@lukemulks) July 24, 2019 Are there gambling ads in Brave? Why not?

We plan to support bring your own wallet, but we cannot do KYC ourselves and do not want your identity-scans. We have vendors in play for this, as announced already. — BrendanEich (@BrendanEich) July 24, 2019 How will BAT be withdrawn?

More than 2.4MM people are using Brave every single day. I'm telling you, this movement won't be stopped. It's time to take back the Internet, and re-claim our data. Forward! — Sampson (@BraveSampson) July 19, 2019 Wow… That’s a lot of daily Brave users.

Legit ad for Amazon, served through an inventory source we are testing with. Hope this helps! — Luke Mulks (@lukemulks) July 25, 2019 You have questions regarding Amazon ads, Luke has answers.

BAT/Brave in the News

This is the browser you’ll want if you really care about online privacy

Out of the box, Brave browser blocks trackers and third-party cookies that monitor your activity as you travel across the web. But the browser gives you control over what you do and don’t want to be blocked — from ads and cookies to Facebook and Google login buttons.



Read the full text here: https://www.cnet.com/how-to/this-is-the-browser-youll-want-if-you-really-care-about-online-privacy/

Brave, the Crypto-Powered Browser Making the Headlines

A crypto-powered browser is making big strides this year. With growing public attention on data protection, it seems as if Brave Browser arrived at the right time. And they are seemingly unstoppable.



USA Today and Wired magazine, which featured Brave Browser for their series of launches and milestones achieved. These include the launch of a privacy-centric ad platform, a “Twitter tipping” feature, and marking the seven million monthly active users and 60,000 publishers milestone.

Is Web 3.0 the next lifestyle brand?

I am starting to wonder if choosing a blockchain or a Web 3.0 approach is as much a lifestyle choice as a technological choice. Leaving aside the naming challenge (are we calling this blockchain, crypto, or Web 3.0?), I think it represents a movement of people who want to live with intention, self-discipline, and personal agency.



If THAT message can get refined and promoted, and not the one about all the virtues and downsides of the tech, maybe more groups of people would be open to hearing the larger story and engaging?

News You Should Know

Read this before installing extensions to your web browser

When Amazon offered recently to pay Prime members $10 to download its Assistant browser extension, Jeremy Tillman, who runs the ad-blocking software Ghostery, took notice. He likened it to that sweetheart deal when the Dutch bought Manhattan island for $24.



A consumer chump deal, enabling Amazon to “watch everything you do on your browser,” specifically your online shopping habits, in exchange for that $10 discount.



Read the full text here: https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/talkingtech/2019/07/22/beware-browser-extensions-chrome-safari-and-other-web-browsers/1782753001/

From Fitbits to Rokus, Hedge Funds Mine Data for Consumer Habits

When it comes to gaining that elusive trading edge, data is fast becoming the new frontier whether it comes from Fitbits, Rokus and Teslas or employment websites like Glassdoor.com.



That’s why some of the world’s biggest hedge funds, from Steve Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management to Ken Griffin’s Citadel, have been snapping up large swaths of alternative data. Many are paying big money for it.



Read the full text here: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-24/from-fitbits-to-rokus-hedge-funds-mine-data-for-consumer-habits

Facebook settles with FTC: $5 billion and new privacy guarantees

Following more than a year of speculation since the Federal Trade Commission said it was investigating Facebook over privacy lapses, the regulator has officially announced the terms of its settlement with the beleaguered social network: $5 billion (as previously rumored) and improved privacy oversight within the company.

Roaring Fans

NEW: In less than a week I earned a dollar with @brave browser. It's not a lot, but @BrendanEich and the gang broke the barrier! Now advertisers pay us for our attention! — Neural Netmork (@starsprout) July 20, 2019

Look at the amount of ads & trackers blocked @brave 4.1 hours saved so far. pic.twitter.com/JrGNHmrTIG — Francisco (@_FranciscoLemus) July 24, 2019

@brave i’ve been using since longer than I can remember. This is just on my desktop PC. I’ve amassed couple hundred $BAT at this point. pic.twitter.com/qdL0QSNP51 — crypt0Wizard⚡️⚡️🧙‍♂️🔮’m.T’⚡️💫 (@a1MTarabichi) July 24, 2019

From Reddit: