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Downgraded? Or removed the shopping lens thing?

Also, for the record, here's what Jono Bacon (Ubuntu Community Manager) had to say about this http://www.jonobacon.org/2012/12/07/on-r...nd-ubuntu/

I installed the previous LTS Ubuntu for them.

As for removing the "lens", you usually can remove your spyware from your computer with anti-spyware and anti-virus programs as you usually have to do with Windows. It doesn't make it less spyware.

Uh okay, but it essentially removes the spyware component. Removing the lens or downgrading is the same in that respect -- you're still using Ubuntu -- but the former is less burdensome. If you're boycotting Ubuntu's latest release, you might as well do the same for the rest of them.

The shopping lens is a package that you can uninstall, AFAIK. There are plenties of guides.

I don't like Ubuntu, but my parents does and I did not know that it's possible to disable the spyware component. But if I knew that I would still downgrade so Canonical doesn't enable it in updates or something. I've never really liked Ubuntu, but this made me really drop my little liking of it.

The thing is that most Ubuntu users probably doesn't know or care about this, especially when it's enabled by default. It's really dangerous and we don't know what Canpnical will do with the personal information in the future. What's quite sad is that people usually say "i got nothing to hide anyway" and such, they don't relize the importance. They wouldn't like to allow companies to go trough their homes, even if that is almost the same thing.

I don't use Ubuntu but even if I did, I'm not fussed. It doesn't transmit your private data, all it does is transmit your search parameters. That's just some words, in what way is that different from what Google does on a web search? My issue with Amazon and Google right now is that they're avoiding paying UK tax, what they do with the fact someones searching for something or not, I don't care.

You can just sudo apt-get remove the specific lens. Canonical only provided a GUI tool late in the development cycle of 12.10 though, which turns off all online features, including the nice and useful video (and YouPorn for me!) lenses. Poor show. They should offer a graphical way to remove lenses you don't want. The cynic in me makes me doubt that this feature will exist in the next version of Ubuntu, it would only be natural for them to try to lock the dumb end-user into it.

Worst of all, I can't even see a use case for this. I think it would turn people off of Linux, and one can't deny when looking at mainstream news sites that 'Linux' equates with 'Ubuntu' - and just Ubuntu. When people say 'Linux sucks', they really mean vanilla Ubuntu and have not tasted the wonders of KDE.

PS: Canonical and any distro creator has root access. They do your software upgrades for you.

@edh: I hate Google and I use the DuckDuckGo search engine. My next phone will be a Jolla (continuation of MeeGo) or maybe even (god forbid) a freedom-hating iPhone, I currently have an Android phone and I need to use my Google Account to access half its functionality. Just because I hate how Google is present in every software market segment and Jews people's data. Worst of all, it filters out the internet for them and gets its way with its filter bubble. Google be damned.

@edh
As i said before, what if you search for your local files? Now the searches doesn't only tell about which sites you're visiting, your interests and such, now it also spying what files you have on your computer. That's very dangerous. Would you like to allow a company that you purchased or simply using their service on their terms to go trough your stuff in your house? Probably not, why would you want them to look in your harddrive then?
@Everopi
What do you mean with that Canonical have root access?

Canonical have root access in the sense that they could ship you any innocuous update to a package with anything they want in an install script, and that would run as root.

Saying Amazon and Canonical have access to all your local files is a bit exaggerated. But indeed, search terms can contain sensitive data, and that's a concern. Hopefully edh will look past that overblown statement of yours and address this.

My issue with Amazon and Google right now is that they're avoiding paying UK tax, what they do with the fact someones searching for something or not, I don't care.

Damn right.

There is a big OFF switch for the amazon results in the privacy settings pane, FYI. Also, the data canonical has is anonymized, so it's not spyware in any real way. It's only possible to track the search habits of the entire ubuntu user base if one were to breach canonical's servers.

Or if Canonical simply sell the information, or get their servers get's infected by a worm, or even something else. This ain't good, and many non-technical people will suffer due to this.

now it also spying what files you have on your computer.

No it isn't. It does not send the files, it just sends your search parameters. Now unless you happen to name your files with confidential data and search for 'my bank account spreadsheet - account number 12345678.ods', you have not send anything confidential. Using confidential data in a file name or a search term would be unwise anyway, it just makes it too obvious should your computer be stolen by baddies lets say - an event much worse than Amazon seeing that you searched for 'boobies' in your home directory.

If you use any of the big online email providers, they all search through the bodies of emails you have, surely that would be more of a worry to you?

Yeah, I know the terms of my email provider, they ain't pretty.

As for what I meant with "know what files", you're most likely to use the dash to find your files and programs which means they can mostly find out what kinds of files you have and what programs you're using and have installed.

As for what I meant with "know what files", you're most likely to use the dash to find your files and programs which means they can mostly find out what kinds of files you have and what programs you're using and have installed.

Filetypes are pretty obvious though. Most people are using pretty similar file types. Why would it be of any concern for someone else to know what filetypes you are using? Most computers will have condifential data on them and it's pretty obvious that some documents might have confidential data in, some might not, some spreadsheets might have confidential data in, some might not, why would it be of any interest to anyone else?

For programs, they already have a pretty good idea of that sort of thing through the number of downloads of each package on their repositories. Why would it help them any more and how do you think they'll use it against you?

iphone's siri will do the same ....

...



these privacy debates are a little ... um .... kittyfacey .... :3
um ... anyways ...

They should probably ask if you want the feature on in the install process .... like xonotic does with stats on first launch

Also

Seeing as the feature has to go though their servers ... if conocial goes under ... or they stop running the server?
does the feature stop working?

....

hutty uses kde ^^

Like I was saying (but not many wanted to listen) - Ubuntu is evil :-). I recommend that you change the distro for your parents, as ubu will only get more and more of the crap with each version.

now it also spying what files you have on your computer.

No it isn't. It does not send the files, it just sends your search parameters. Now unless you happen to name your files with confidential data and search for 'my bank account spreadsheet - account number 12345678.ods', you have not send anything confidential. Using confidential data in a file name or a search term would be unwise anyway, it just makes it too obvious should your computer be stolen by baddies lets say - an event much worse than Amazon seeing that you searched for 'boobies' in your home directory.

If you use any of the big online email providers, they all search through the bodies of emails you have, surely that would be more of a worry to you?

You remind me of Eric Schmidt there. "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place."

Can a computer user not reasonably expect from their operating system not to suddenly start leaking data about them? Or do they need to watch their tech newsfeeds to keep up to date with what their OS is doing with their private data? I know my computer can be stolen, which is why I would encrypt my hard drive -- Ubuntu even provides facilities for this. I'm aware of that risk and it allows me to take measures against it. Now, I'm clever enough to figure out that there must be some sending of data to the outside world when I get results from Amazon in my searches, so I can also opt out of this if it concerns me. But not everyone knows how that works, so it makes complete sense to me that people aware of privacy issues want this feature to be opt-in.

I'm also very worried that the fact that Google is doing this stuff with your email makes it suddenly okay in your mind that others would do the same.

Downgrading to an older release is a funny reaction, a few seconds googling (or duckduckgoing depending on your preference) would have showed you how to disable the unity-shopping-lense and from there you could decide if you wanted to stick with Ubuntu or move your parents to another distro, perhaps Linux Mint. If thats not far enough away from Ubuntu for your taste there are a fuck ton of other nonubuntu related distros out there Sabayon or Mageia come to mind but theres a lot of other options.

EFF's take on the matter and instructions to remove the shopping-lense

Detailed instructions to remove the default shopping-lense and install an alternative

Same thread talking about the anonymized search aspect

Its been said already but this type of thing should be opt-in only defaults like this piss people off.

Just another reason for me to move away from Ubuntu, Canonical is going do what it wants, but it will have to make do with less users

Like I was saying (but not many wanted to listen) - Ubuntu is evil :-).

Are you sure this kind of message would persuade someone to listen to you? I might not like Ubuntu, I've probably not liked it much longer than you having tried it right back in the beginning and quite a few times since but calling it evil? Say things like that and people don't want to listen.

Can a computer user not reasonably expect from their operating system not to suddenly start leaking data about them?

Well, it never suddenly started. They installed a new OS, it came with it. They've opted in to this. If they checked through the features of the OS and found that it did this, then they can make their own decision. I'm sure Canonical's lawyers will have looked into the legalities of what is needed and end user agreements but if anyone wants to challenge this, that would be where to go.

Richard Stallman harping on about how bad it is doesn't help. If he has a problem with it he should challenge Canonical to prove that the practice is legal in every country where Ubuntu can be downloaded from. If it is not (there may well be gaps) they should close these. This might require a specific user agreement and an opt-out during installation and a statement if there is any country where this is illegal.

Downgrading to an older release is a funny reaction

Yes, but this is about people cutting off their own nose to spite their own face. Logic doesn't come into it.

Well, it never suddenly started. They installed a new OS, it came with it. They've opted in to this. If they checked through the features of the OS and found that it did this, then they can make their own decision. I'm sure Canonical's lawyers will have looked into the legalities of what is needed and end user agreements but if anyone wants to challenge this, that would be where to go.

Unless you're using the LTS version, upgrading means you're getting this. It does not only come with the freshly installed OS.

And I doubt the feature list of the OS explicitly states that every search in that box is sent to third-parties by default. And burying this detail into an EULA is a practice I would consider shady as hardly anyone reads them (especially not non-technically-enclined people.)

Richard Stallman harping on about how bad it is doesn't help. If he has a problem with it he should challenge Canonical to prove that the practice is legal in every country where Ubuntu can be downloaded from. If it is not (there may well be gaps) they should close these. This might require a specific user agreement and an opt-out during installation and a statement if there is any country where this is illegal.

Legality does not matter. As far as I know, laws aren't designed to cover everything that might harm people and nothing else. This is a problem of ethics and privacy, not legality. Canonical are using their userbase for financial means at the cost of some of their privacy, and that makes them untrustable in my book.

I and most people here would take no issue with this if it were opt-in. I'm still waiting for you to explain why you disagree with opt-in.

It might even be illegal in some legislation as opt-out process, depending on how the data is being used/processed. But those legislations that provide detailed guidelines for privacy protection are usually too lazy to properly enforce them. No wait, it's the executive that is too lazy, not the legislative. Anyway.

Opt-in is what they should go for. I also doubt they anonymize the data, it would be much more use for them if they only used pseudonyms.

I'm with MrBougo on this one to 100%.

Ubuntu 12.10 isn't a LTS version, the "shopping lens" is an experiment and will probably change (the next LTS version will be Ubuntu 14.04). I read on a forum that Canonical was thinking about a kinda "local files / internet results" switch on the Unity Dash.

However, I don't like this lens either. I trust Canonical for providing me updates (I don't think that their packages are full of spywares...). But as Mr.Bougo I think the shopping lens should be opt-in (why not including a "support Canonical" button just before installation ?)

Anyway, I'm using Xubuntu and ArchLinux, I can't stand Unity :p

The reason I downgraded my parents install to Ubuntu's previous LTS release is beucase then I'm sure my parents or my sister doesn't enable it again or something, and they do not want to switch distro so that's not an option.( when i think about it ill maybe install Debian on their machine and simply use Ubuntu's theme so they think it's Ubuntu)

Unless you're using the LTS version, upgrading means you're getting this.

You would still have opted into something at some point to accept upgrades and all that comes with it. If you do not believe it either to be permissable under law or under the terms and conditions (which are a contract) then take it up with Canonical.

And burying this detail into an EULA is a practice I would consider shady as hardly anyone reads them (especially not non-technically-enclined people.)

If you don't read it then you can't complain. One of the founding principles of western law is "ignorance is no excuse", the EULA is a contract so this does apply. It might be nice of them to tell you specifically but they don't have to unless it is required in law, hence why I keep suggesting than voicing your opinion on the Interwebs will get you nowhere and that you should raise the legal aspects with Canonical. If they are found not be illegal somewhere then they must do something about it. If people keeping posting that Ubuntu is evil and everyone should boycott them, they don't have to. Stallman is not getting a realistic boycott from this, the vast majority of Ubuntu's target audience have no idea who he is.

Legality does not matter. As far as I know, laws aren't designed to cover everything that might harm people and nothing else.

The EULA is a contract and is covered by law. Challenge Canonical to prove that it is legal in every country. You are more likely to make progress this way.

Canonical are using their userbase for financial means at the cost of some of their privacy

Oh that evil Mr Shuttleworth putting in so much money into software development, giving the product away free to most users only then for Canonical to want to make money down the line so that it continues as a going concern. You don't seriously think he just wants to keep pouring his own hard earned money into it alone? It's a business.

I'm still waiting for you to explain why you disagree with opt-in.

I never said I disagreed with an opt-in.

What I disagree with is the chastisement of an organisation being called evil for a practice which is in no way new. If you have a store loyalty card you give away far more information than this any time you shop. You didn't think those points were given to you just for loyalty did you? No, they build up a full profile of your shopping habits. Shell can tell where I drive, how many litres of fuel I put in where and what I eat for lunch. British Airways can tell where I fly, how long to the second it takes for me to get through checkin, security, into the business class lounge and then how long it takes for me to get to the gate. OK, I get air miles as a reward but they're not a gift. Hilton Hotels know where I sleep each time I rock up and hand the card over at the desk. There's advantages to it in them upgrading me to a better room most of the time, free wine, breakfast, Internet but they get something for it in between. Does it worry me? No.