Brave Browseris previewing a new advertising model that will allow users to earn digital currency by watching online ads. However, the goal isn't to help users make quick cash, but to promote the money to their favorite websites.
A not-so-well-known browser has a crazy idea: It offers to pay you to view ads on the software.
On Tuesday, the Brave browser began previewing its new advertising model, which promises to channel 70% of revenue to users who load and watch ads. The remaining 30% will go to the browser's developers.
Revenue sharing will be done through Brave Rewards, a feature that is currently available in beta on the browser's desktop version. Once enabled, it will display ads that you can watch to earn a digital currency called BAT.
The company behind the browser, Brave Software, won't be launching the reward currency right away. However, it estimates that participating users will be able to earn around $60 to $70 this year, and possibly around $224 in 2020.
Of course, there's one big catch to the whole system. You can't withdraw the coins you've earned and turn them into cash. At least not yet. Instead, Brave wants you to spend your digital coins on rewarding your favorite online publishers, like news sites or YouTube.
“The idea is for users to get the lion’s share of the revenue and return it to the top sites and their creators,” the company’s CEO, Brendan Eich, said via Twitter.
Eich, a former Mozilla CEO, has been talking about the idea of revenue sharing since 2016, when launched . The browser comes with an ad blocker by default. However, Eich doesn't want to eliminate online advertising, just remove invasive web tracking.
Brave’s new rewards program will do this by serving ads that preserve digital privacy. “Unlike conventional digital advertising, ad matching is done directly on the user’s device, so a user’s data is not sent to anyone, including Brave,” the company said in a blog post.
Initially, the ads will appear in a small pop-up window in the corner of your screen as you browse the web. You can then choose to view the ad by clicking on the notification, which will create the full ad in a private tab. To show relevant ads, Brave’s on-device ad matching will look at keywords on the web pages you load. Users can also choose how many ads they would like to see per hour.
Later this year, Brave plans to enhance the system with ads that appear on the websites you visit. However, these ads will only share 15% of the revenue with the user. 70% will go to the advertisers and content creators who host the ads. The remaining 15% will go to Brave.
“With Brave Ads, we are reforming an online advertising system that has become invasive and underutilized,” the company said in a blog post. “Brave Ads removes the middlemen who exploit user data and instead offers a system that is based on consent.”.
While the digital currencies are intended to fund sites and content creators, Brave also envisions the currency being used to purchase high-quality content online. You will also be able to withdraw the coins, making it possible to cash out your winnings, Eich said on Twitter. It is not yet clear when the withdrawal feature will be available, though.
