Brave Browser Adds Sponsored Images Feature to New Tabs

The open-source Brave web browser announced yesterday the latest addition to its advertising platform called “Sponsored Images”. Selected images will be displayed on Brave’s new tab page and will generate additional income for Brave Software’s mission.

As expected from Brave, Sponsored Images will be private and are scheduled to start showing up during the next few months on both desktop and mobile version of the browser.

As the people from Brave believe, Sponsored Images will be one more reason for users to turn on Brave Rewards and be compensated for their time, as we’ve reported in a previous article.

Sponsored Images, the latest addition to Brave’s private advertising platform, will begin to appear across our mobile & desktop browsers over the next few months. Users who opt into Brave Rewards will receive a 70% revenue share for Sponsored Images. https://t.co/kOVMF7W0Ux

— Brave Software (@brave) January 15, 2020

How the feature came to be

The Brave team has been including great background images when a new tab is opened since September 2016. Some of them were specifically picked by their designers, while others were submitted by community members, but in all cases – the feedback was very positive. The browser was rotating 16 photos that were periodically updated but also included a feature to hide the images for a simpler look.

It all started with a tweet coming from a Brave user who suggested that the browser should incorporate more SpaceX launch photos, as one was already into rotation.

After that, the rotating cycle contained a number of SpaceX photos and therefore users started to ask whether SpaceX is paying Brave to include their content. The answer, of course, was ‘no’ but the people from Brave started to think in this direction – how can such content help the ecosystem? Not long after Sponsored Images was born.

An important point is that only selected companies will have the chance to upload a branded image into the rotation, which means that we probably won’t see a McDonald’s or Pepsi logo any time soon. Image sponsorships will be displayed full screen and are the same for everyone in a certain country.

How it works

As we mentioned before, with Brave Rewards each user can earn 70% of Brave’s ad revenue by viewing private advertisements and contribute back to favored content creators. Sponsored Images is a new addition to this program.

Once a user sees a sponsored image and has Brave Rewards turned on – he or she will earn a 70% revenue share. While Sponsored Images will be shown to every user by default, only the ones who have Brave Rewards turned on and a wallet set up will be reimbursed.

When users get rewarded for their attention, more BAT will go into the hands of content creators. This is a serious step towards making Brave and the BAT ecosystem a practical and viable replacement for the current web services that work in a surveillance manner.

The mission is still the same

Brave pointed out in their press release that nothing has changed security-wise:

“Brave is absolutely committed to preserving your privacy — we block tracking by known and unknown companies whose businesses consist of building dossiers of what sites you visit and how you interact with them. We don’t track anyone ourselves, either. Blocking tracking as we do effectively blocks most online ads, as nearly all ads today rely on tracking.”

Brave Browser comprehends the difference between first-party ads, which are not blocked and third-party ads, which create a dossier of your activity and are blocked.

Sponsorship ads are also not blocked by Brave as they do “not need cross-site tracking — or user-level targeting”. This distinction has been explained in a podcast by Brave CEO Brendan Eich.