

Linux Outfit Canonical Launches Campaign to Silence Privacy Critic - mmpozulp
http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/11/fixubuntu/

======
jcastro
This was just a misunderstanding, comments from Mark S:

[https://plus.google.com/116812394236590806058/posts/5jdibY5i...](https://plus.google.com/116812394236590806058/posts/5jdibY5iR9b)

EDIT: and subsequent blogpost:
[http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/1299](http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/1299)

~~~
u2328
I agree with Mark that it's not worth beating up Canonical over a bureaucratic
slip up. Latching on to simple mistakes that are the result of internal
miscommunication and misinterpretations of policy is foolish. And ideologues
(especially in the software world) love to do that blindly, but it's not
intelligent discourse.

That being said, I don't think that absolves Canonical of the underlying
criticism: your company is active pushing a product, despite its open-source-
ness, that betrays the trust and privacy of your users unless they're informed
enough about the situation to opt-out.

I know Canonical is a corporation and has to generate revenue. I won't sit and
pretend like I know how to solve that problem for your company. It doesn't
change the dilemma, however. I'd like to recommend a user-friendly Linux to my
friends and family. I won't recommend Ubuntu until the privacy issue is opt-in
instead of opt-out. In fact, if they're less-technical, I recommend iPads and
Macs. At least Apple doesn't ship off desktop search results to a third party
that we're aware of. I hold enough trust with Apple to believe that they are
not. It's unfortunate that I can't say the same for Canonical.

~~~
ghshephard
"At least Apple doesn't ship off desktop search results to a third party that
we're aware of"

Care to wager what Apple resells your desktop/iphone/iPad search results for?
I'm guessing it's on the order of 100 million dollars/year. Certainly more
than 10 million dollars.

~~~
x0x0
unless there is something new in the latest release of osx 10.9, what on earth
are you talking about?

Also, apple sells google the right to be the default search engine on ios (see
eg [1]); this is very different than selling your search queries or results.
For instance, when you get a google results page, only the very stupidest
could be unaware that, well, google knows what you searched for.

[1] [http://bgr.com/2013/02/11/google-apple-ios-default-
search-1-...](http://bgr.com/2013/02/11/google-apple-ios-default-
search-1-billion-324728/)

~~~
ghshephard
Ah. When I first read your response I was wondering, "What possible searches
could be resold _other than the browser_ search results."

You obviously can't resell something like a file/application search on the
local computer (akin to Spotlight search on OS X).

Apparently I was wrong: [http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/09/ubuntu-bakes-
amazon-...](http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/09/ubuntu-bakes-amazon-
search-results-into-os-to-raise-cash/)

That is bad on so many levels - privacy, security, network performance, etc...
Presumably every time I do one of those searches, traffic is sent over my
internet connection...

I wonder what's going through Canonical's mind - And why they think this is a
good idea...

~~~
NateDad
The idea is to join your offline and online worlds. Maybe you don't remember
if you had that file on your desktop or google drive or dropbox or ubuntu one.
The unfortunate part is that online searches were launched with just Amazon,
which makes it look like a money grab, when it was intended just to help the
user keep their worlds in order. More online scopes will launch soon, and
it'll be a lot more obvious that this is just trying to make your life better.

Yes, Canonical also makes a tiny bit of money for the Amazon integration, but
that was not the driving factor behind the feature as a whole. There will be
more online scopes to come, and the hope is to make your life easier, by not
having to remember exactly where you put all your stuff.

Also, you can easily turn off all online searches with a single toggle inside
Settings -> Security and Privacy -> Search.

Canonical knows there is a lot of heat around the feature, and they're not
ignoring that, despite what it may seem like from the outside.

~~~
x0x0
bs. companies implement the most important things first. now maybe canonical
is running to implement searching other stuff as a fig leaf -- oh guys, no
wait, we weren't just doing this to sell your local searches to advertisers.
but if that weren't the purpose dropbox and google drive would have been the
first implementations.

------
ghshephard
I don't see an Ubuntu/Canonical trademark on this website.

Certainly if:
"[http://makingchangeatwalmart.org/"](http://makingchangeatwalmart.org/")
doesn't get shut down, "fixubuntu.com" should be ok.

Edit: from: [http://blog.canonical.com/2013/11/08/trademarks-community-
an...](http://blog.canonical.com/2013/11/08/trademarks-community-and-
criticism/) "The site owner has already agreed to remove the Ubuntu logo and
clarified that there is no connection; from our perspective the situation has
been resolved, "

------
codezero
"But Lee isn’t taking the thing down"

Good for you.

Hosting a shell script with informative keywords seems like completely
reasonable fair use, so if this goes to court, I doubt they will have a case.

The site fixubuntu.com doesn't appear to have any logos on it now, maybe it
did before? So at the very least, it looks like he pulled that, if they were
there in the first place. This article seems to imply the logo was there.

~~~
thejosh
Seems they only like it when it has "good" connotations to the name, as sites
like OMGUbuntu and other sites stay up, while sites that want to help users
remove the Amazon go down.

~~~
oblique63
legitimate question: how many of these 'anti-ubuntu/amazon' sites are there,
and how many of them have actually been threatened to be taken down in the
past?

Because right now this is looking like an isolated incident (albeit an
inconvenient one for Canonical's PR), so it could be meaningless to try and
read into it too much...

------
drderidder
Been a longtime Ubuntu fan but Canonical's newfound disrespect for users
privacy and ham fisted response means I'm looking for another distro now. Nice
try by Mark Shuttleworth to explain the whole thing away (plays the "blame it
all on the new guy" card) but once you've turned to into a datapimp it's hard
to regain trust.

------
mig39
Ubuntu, meet Streissand Effect.

------
detcader
Well obviously Canonical isn't going to bother OMG! Ubuntu!, it generally
helps users to keep using Ubuntu and stay in the "Ubuntu community".

Edit: as another user just commented:
[https://plus.google.com/116812394236590806058/posts/5jdibY5i...](https://plus.google.com/116812394236590806058/posts/5jdibY5iR9b)

