LEONID BERSHIDSKY: Google and Facebook too can be disrupted. Brendan Eich thinks he knows how
Brave Software’s attempt to up-end the way ads are sold on the internet could be considered quixotic if not for Eich’s track record
I have long considered today’s internet advertising model a scam: it’s a system in which giant, monopolistic companies — Google and Facebook — are selling inflated user numbers and overhyped targeting opportunities to advertisers while collecting way too much information about users and cheating content creators out of their fair share of revenue. It may not be too late to fix it, though. Just ask Brendan Eich, founder and CEO of Brave Software, a San Francisco-based start-up whose attempt to change the standards could be considered quixotic if not for Eich’s track record. Eich created the JavaScript programming language while working for Netscape, and then co-founded the Mozilla project, which developed the Firefox browser. He had to leave Mozilla for reasons that had nothing to do with his vision or technical prowess. His current company makes a browser, too, but it’s different from others in that it prevents sites from tracking a user and blocks ads, while also bypassing the anti...
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