Disclose possible conflict of interest that is raised in regard to owner of the website

[SocietasEvanescentes]

Issue

The website is run by a person (Arthur Edelstein) who is affiliated and works for Brave Software; This raises a conflict of interest, as Brave is a company that competes with other browser vendors. This can be verified by searching online of said person and reading in written words that he is employed by Brave Software.

Impact The conflict of interest could lead to biased reporting on the website. The site might be more likely to publish positive content about Brave and negative content about its competitors, for example by disabling privacy or security features for its rivals, not disclosing this, and tanking the trust of rival browsers like Firefox, Safari, DuckDuckGo, etc. (FWIW, I use IceCat.)

Proposed Solution

Add an easily visible notice or disclosure that while the website is not directly related or created by Brave itself, that it maintained or ran by someone who now works for Brave Software. This will help ensure the website is trustworthy and that the people behind it are not using it for the benefit of their employer, especially after the employee joined the company after the website was up for a while.

[arthuredelstein]

@SocietasEvanescentes Thank you for your suggestion. I understand why you made this proposal and I have considered the approach.

First I should mention that there is already a disclosure on the website, which you may have seen: https://privacytests.org/about.html. Readers can reach it by clicking the "About" link on the homepage. This disclosure was posted when I first joined Brave.

It's true that some casual readers may not see this disclosure. On the other hand, I don't think a focus on my employment would be particularly helpful to readers. Regardless of my employment status, the rightness or wrongness of the test results depends primarily on what is being tested and how the tests are implemented. Fortunately it is possible to evaluate those things directly by examining the list of tests, reading the code, running the code, etc. That kind of careful examination is going to be far more meaningful than speculating about the effects of my employment status.

So while I have no desire to hide the fact that I work for Brave, I also think putting it as the primary content "above the fold" on the website would distract from the information the website is designed to convey.

[SocietasEvanescentes]

@arthuredelstein

Thank you for your feedback about the disclosure of your employment status on the privacytests.org website. I appreciate your concern for transparency, and I understand your point of view.

However, I respectfully disagree with your assessment of the situation. I believe that the disclosure of your employment status is important for several reasons.

First, it is significant for users to be aware of any potential conflicts of interest. As you have acknowledged, your employment with Brave could potentially bias the results of the tests. By disclosing your employment status, you are giving users the opportunity to factor this information into their assessment of the tests. In the current version of the website, a user must click about and scroll about three or four paragraphs to find the disclosure; I believe making this more visible either by moving it to the top of the about page, or adding a banner somewhere on the front page ensures good will, which leads me to below.

Second, the disclosure of your employment status helps to build trust with users. When users know that you are transparent about your affiliations, they are more likely to trust the results of the tests, and ensures your credibility as a person and should reduce or remove future claims of bias made by people; This is especially influential for a website that is designed to help users protect their privacy.

Finally, the disclosure of your employment status is simply good practice. It is standard practice for websites to disclose any potential conflicts of interest, and I believe that the privacytests.org website should follow this practice as well. This appears in many forms of different products, news, etc.; take the Washington Post which discloses that it is owned by Jeff Bezos, but doesn't endorse or hold the view of Amazon.

I do use this website for helping family members pick a browser that has either what they are looking for, or just the right mix of privacy and features; I myself should state that in no way am I trying to undermine the website as I find it an indispensable and trustworthy site for people who want a quick glance of what their browser does, doesn't do, etc. and only want to see the website get better.

[arthuredelstein]

Hi @SocietasEvanescentes -- many thanks for your reply. I completely agree with all your points about the benefits of disclosure. Those benefits are indeed why I included the disclosure on the "about" page.

I also take your point that the disclosure is currently a little hard to find. I will think about how to make it more prominent; I like your latest suggestions.

I truly appreciate the feedback! I will leave this ticket open until I have come up with a solution.