14 DAY TRIAL // Open-source browser Brave, which has become famous for its focus on user privacy, has been caught adding referral codes to typed-in URLs in the address bar.
The discovery was made by Twitter user @cryptonator1337 (in the meantime, his findings have also gone viral on other social media sites, including reddit), who noticed that whenever someone manually types binance.us in the address bar, Brave browser auto-completes the URL with a referral code.
While this isn’t a privacy issue, it’s something that doesn’t sit well with Brave users who expect nothing but full transparency from the app developer.
And as it turns out, referral codes are being added not only when Binance, but also other websites like Ledger, Trezor, and Coinbase.
Fix already on its way
Brave CEO and co-founder Brendan Eich has already responded on Twitter, explaining that this is something that’s being resolved as we speak, with all referral codes to be removed in the next update.
“We partner with Binance as an affiliate. That code identifies us, not you,” Eich explained.
Earlier this year, Brave and crypto exchange service Binance signed a partnership that essentially allowed users to trade cryptocurrencies right on the new tab page without the need for any other apps.
“All big browsers do this for search affiliate deals (internal accounting in Chrome’s case; it tracks logged in users too). We treated a typed-in domain name as a search, fell into same model for attributing to the partner. We already fixed to default it off,” Eich further added.
By the looks of things, the referral codes are being added for the sites mentioned above both on the desktop and mobile. A fix is already on its way, so expect an update to resolve the whole blunder any day now on all platforms where Brave is available for download.