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Brendan Eich, founder and CEO of Brave, joins Ash Bennington, Real Vision senior editor, to discuss the Brave browser, basic attention token (BAT), and controlling your own data. Eich explains that Brave was created as a way for users to control the ads and cookies in their browser, noting that simply blocking ads and removing data hurts publishers. He wanted to allow both Brave users and publishers to benefit, so the basic attention token was created to allow users to pay publishers while still coordinating their own ad preferences. Describing Brave as leading the way in implementing data privacy for browsers, Eich states that their mission is to increase accessibility to privacy tools for the masses, putting the control of user data back into the users’ hands while also supporting publishers. Filmed on January 29, 2021.

Key Learnings: Brave is a browser aimed at supporting privacy and user-controlled data while supporting publishers and content creators. Privacy tools are becoming increasingly accessible to average users, and Brave pushes this to the next level by embedding user control in the browser. Regulators and users are demanding more user control and privacy of data, pointing to the fact that society is moving towards a user-centric era of data.