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Amazon search results in the Dash (markshuttleworth.com)
89 points by kracekumar on Sept 23, 2012 | hide | past | favorite | 86 comments



> The Home Lens of the Dash is a “give me X” experience. You hit the Super key, and say what you want, and we do our best to figure out what you mean, and give you that.

That argument would be a lot more convincing if the Dash actually displayed results from a lot of places, not just Amazon. What if I want to search the Web? What if I want to search my social networking services? What if I want to look up directions to a location? What if I want to look up a word in a dictionary? (Remember, Ubuntu is popular in schools in some countries.)

Shopping is just one of the many, many things that people want from their computers. Generally speaking, when I'm looking for something on the Internet, Amazon is seldom the first place where I go look for it.

If you really want to turn the Dash into the ultimate "give me X" experience, at least add Google, Twitter, and Wikipedia to the list. That would make a nice replacement for Firefox's search bar. It might even increase your affiliate revenue. You might also consider providing an API so that third-parties such as DuckDuckGo can develop and distribute their own search integration add-ons. (Extra points if you can correctly guess whether I'm looking for web search results or shopping results at any given time.)

> We are not telling Amazon what you are searching for. Your anonymity is preserved because we handle the query on your behalf. Don’t trust us? Erm, we have root. You do trust us with your data already.

That statement sounds suspiciously like the other Mark that we all know and love/hate. You know, the guy who is trying his damnedest to make privacy obsolete.


> That argument would be a lot more convincing if the Dash actually displayed results from a lot of places, not just Amazon. What if I want to search the Web? What if I want to search my social networking services? What if I want to look up directions to a location? What if I want to look up a word in a dictionary? (Remember, Ubuntu is popular in schools in some countries.)

Apple already tried this with Sherlock. It just isn't something people seem to actually want.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherlock_(software)

When Apple killed Sherlock, they replaced it with Spotlight (local search only), and Dashboard (widgets that you can use to find specific network information without going to the web).


Spotlight is not local search only, including links to Wikipedia and for web searches (and even recently viewed pages).


It has links, but not live content fetched from the internet.


I loved Sherlock. I thought they killed it because they got tired of it and it didn't monetize, not because it was unloved.


> That argument would be a lot more convincing if the Dash actually displayed results from a lot of places, not just Amazon.

"Right now, it’s not dynamically choosing what to search, it’s just searching local scopes and Amazon, but it will get smarter over time."


I wonder what "smarter" means. Does it mean that Dash will intelligently choose whether to search local data or Amazon, or does it mean that more options beside Amazon will become available? My interpretation is closer to the former.


> That argument would be a lot more convincing if the Dash actually displayed results from a lot of places, not just Amazon.

It does. There's at least some integration with Google Docs and Flickr. If you go to "Online Accounts" -> Add account, there's a dropdown menu where you can choose to view accounts which integrate specifically with the dash. Though I'm not sure if it's there by default in 12.04 or is it a remnant of my failed attempt to install a preview of that feature from some PPA.

Anyway, dash can integrate with your online accounts, not just Aamazon's store. You can then search through your Flickr photos and Google Docs straight from the dash.


I agree completely. In particular, the "we have root" argument strikes a very disturbing chord with anyone who cares anything about their privacy.

The slippery slope is supposed to be a logical fallacy, but in cases where like this, it is very difficult to argue against.


Look, Mark - can I call you Mark? - this idea of yours sucks and you should flush it down the toilet.

I'm typing this on stock Ubuntu 12.04 and let me describe what your search does and doesn't do.

I have a lot of music files on this computer with the phrase "indigo girls" in the title and metadata, okay? So let's see.

Searching for that phrase under Home: "Sorry, there is nothing that matches your search." (!!!) Fail.

Searching for that phrase under Applications: "Sorry, there are no applications that match your search." Okay!

Searching for that phrase under Files and Folders: "Sorry, there are no files or folders that match your search." (!!!) Fail.

Searching for that phrase under Music: Gives me 15 results that are "Available to purchase", but clicking on them results in Banshee media player coming up, with no file playing. I have no idea where these results are coming from and can't do anything with them. My local files do not come up. Fail.

Searching for that phrase under Videos: Gives me results from "Online", some of which appear to have indigo girls in the title and some of which do not. Apparently these are movies on Youtube that I can rent for $2.99. Most of them don't have anything to do with the Indigo Girls, but I guess you'd get a cut if I rented any of these random movie selections. The top result you suggest for "indigo girls" is "Ladies vs Ricky Bahl", which is some Bollywood movie that has nothing to do with the Indigo Girls. At least they actually work, unlike the Music suggestions. Fail.

So in sum, Mark - your lens search utterly, utterly fails at searching for the couple hundred files that are on my computer that match it, and it also fails at monetizing my search results with Youtube and wherever the Music search is supposed to send me to. It literally does not work, at all, in the slightest. At no point did ANY of my local files come up in that search. (Searching for "Indigo" and "indigo" had identical results - none of my local files found. In fact file search doesn't work at all for any search.)

Again, this is stock Ubuntu 12.04.

>We’re interested in feedback in what sorts of things would be useful to search straight from the home lens, and how to improve the search results, as well as provide better control of the process to you.

I'm going to suggest that you search for local files. Apparently this is crazy stuff. But I think it would be an improvement over sending me to rent unrelated Bollywood videos on Youtube. What do you think, Mark?


Precisely. Throughout my experience with Ubuntu I've constantly run into half-baked ideas. It would be great if they followed though with them, but every new release focuses on a new interface or adds more "features".

I switched to Arch a long time and never looked back, but these changes only enhance the need for an easy to deploy and manage distro to take Ubuntu's place in education/business settings and for those who are new to Linux.


The music lens searches thru your music library. When the files containing the music are outside of the library, they are treated as files, not as songs. Is it really so strange?


How do you define "Music library"? Is it a set of all files imported to rhythmbox? But what if I use Banshee? Or, as I've been doing for the past few months, I use cvlc with files and folders typed on the commamd line? What would you consider my music library then? The whole concept of a music library seems passing strange in a world where files are everything.


Windows has libraries for stuff. It isn't very intuitive and I'm not trying to justify it, but that is probably where the sentiment comes from.


> Is it a set of all files imported to rhythmbox?

It seems so.


That is really arbitrary, not everyone follows this convention of a designated library for specific file types.

Also:

> Searching for that phrase under Files and Folders: "Sorry, there are no files or folders that match your search."


Yes, it is really so strange. Or actually, it is really so brain-dead.

I am working on a search utility at this moment.

The first thing you want to do is figure what you're doing and adjust to your user's style rather than forcing them to adjust to your application's ideas. That is one key to a "it just works" application. Anything else is more-or-less stuck in the nineties.


Yes, that is strange.


Your comment might explain the situation, if my files came up when searching in Home and Files but not Music.

But that isn't the case. They don't come up anywhere.


Absolutely spot-on.

And the point is that there is nothing wrong with commercializing your file search system ... once it works, TO THE DEGREE THAT IT WORKS.

If you are only lightly searching local files, then sending the user to a paid ad is bunk. If you know you've heavily searched the local drive and given some easy result too, then adding a paid ad would acceptable, maybe even useful. Look at Google, you've got a good example to follow. People don't hate Google but they'll hate this crap. OK?


Wow what a comment. This is some alright feedback, but are we treating this like a paid product much? Feedback is one thing, but are you really entitled to such a good (free) product (that you didn't help make)that you can bash it like this? Go buy redhat and complain to them.


I would argue that Ubuntu is the antithesis of traditional "scratch-your-own-itch" open source software. The developer of a command line tool that converts widgets to frobnicators can afford to say things like "you get what you pay for" or "it's free so don't complain". She doesn't care whether people use it or not, it works for her and that's all that matters.

On the other hand, Ubuntu is mostly marketing. They actually want people to use their software. This apologist sentiment so typical of Linux advocates won't work here.


Agreed, their website is full of stuff about the benefits of switching your corporation over to Ubuntu.

You can't make statements like that and then say "it's free, don't complain".


You don't buy Red Hat any more than Ubuntu. In both cases you're free to pay or not pay.

In any case, the product I might pay for has nothikng to do with the WM. It's a great package manager with timely updated. All this moving of the cheese, for me, mlstly distracts from the core service I'm looking for. (same deal with Apple/Microsoft.)


not OP, but at the point someone is trying to make money off me, it is not a free product.


I have tried various distro's in past few months. Ubuntu seems to be the only one with some vision. It is not perfect and it is not the best but it does give you sense of using a comprehensive operating system.

Other than that - people just like to hate. There is no solution to it.


Why does he have to pretend so hard that he is not trying to make money? Why the dodging? There's nothing wrong in making money. The only thing wrong here is this dishonesty.

As many others here said in the other thread, we would gladly pay for Ubuntu, if there was an easy, straight forward, transparent way to do so. I would much prefer that instead of Amazon ads (sorry, I mean "integration").

I already pay to be a "friend of eclipse" just because it's easy to do and they deserve it. Or even better, if Ubuntu one services were worth a thing, I would love to pay for it.


The first result when I googled "donate ubuntu" was this link: http://www.ubuntu.com/community/get-involved/donate

It's not super hard to do. If we all gave them $20 for each new version (something they truly deserve) they would not be in dire straits.


It would be far easier if they simply sold the new version.

Relying on the good graces of the user population hasn't prevented them from integrating Amazon advertisements, and won't likely prevent other bad decisions in the future.


Your comment reminded me of other Ubuntu incident - when they were stealing profit from Banshee (they changed banshee's amazon ref id to ubuntu's).


it's a bit presumptious to say who "owns" that profit, as both pieces are open source software that depend on each other for the music experience.


Without the Banshee developers, Ubuntu wouldn't have Banshee to ship, so it's not particularly debatable who deserves the lion's share. Especially considering Ubuntu's incredibly weak contributions to open source in general. What Ubuntu did there was tacky. If they had handled it better (discussing it with upstream and working out a profit sharing scheme), at least it would've been slightly less disgusting.


They did the same with Firefox.


> It would be far easier if they simply sold the new version.

How would they do that without breaking user experience? (and gpl licence).


GPL has zero influence. Please do the barest of research into licensing before invoking the GPL boogieman.


I think it would be difficult for them to start charging for the system at this point. Since everything is open source, if they added some kind of paid activation system or a charge to download the .iso or whatever, someone else would simply grab all of the code, remove the activation features and put it up somewhere else as "freebuntu" or whatever.


Yep, I would pay gladly for ubuntu. But dont make me work your affiliates when searching my own stuff.. then suggesting something else.


"We are not telling Amazon what you are searching for. Your anonymity is preserved because we handle the query on your behalf. Don’t trust us? Erm, we have root. You do trust us with your data already."

Sorry but you have root to what exactly? I am not using ubuntu one and I don't trust my data with ubuntu, thank you. And I don't find his arguments convincing seriously. Some of us are old enough to remember "BonziBuddy" who "helped" with our searches and as far as I remember it also Just Worked, except it was an irritating pervasive spyware.

Privacy and Functionality are two different spheres, I can't accept something very functional if it invades my privacy.


You installed Ubuntu. How do you know that Ubuntu itself and all of the programs that run as root that you installed as part of Ubuntu are not malicious?

A: Trust.

If you are installing updates from Ubuntu (and you should be), how to do you know apt-get/dpkg that you run as root, but came from Ubuntu is not malicious? How do you know that the programs that apt-get just installed that run as root are not malicious?

A: Trust.


Obviously there are different kinds of trust. I trust restaurant employees not to poison my food, but that doesn't mean I trust them with my SS number, bank account, and the details of my personal life. Pre 12.04, if Canonical wanted access to the personal information of their users, it would have involved putting in a backdoor that would be 1)detectable by all Ubuntu users 2)illegal under most spyware laws and 3)cause an extremely large backlash and wide mistrust of Canonical. So I 'trusted' Canonical not to engage in widespread criminal hacking which would have severe legal and social consequences. These consequences now seem removed: 1)There's no way to know if they are misusing the information that is now passed through their servers, barring someone on their end leaking something. 2)They don't appear to have made a legally binding promise about what they are actually doing with the data. Even if they did, the legal consequence of breaking it may be ambiguous. Just because I _did_ trust Canonical doesn't mean I trust them forever. Canonical's method of dumping an obviously intrusive function on users and then issuing a smarmy response that downplays genuine concerns shows that they are missing the social intelligence that would be required to even properly understand issues of privacy invasion, and I'm certainly looking to migrate elsewhere.


It's not the same thing. Installing binaries from them doesn't send them any of my local data.

I guess their apps could start uploading stuff, but people will figure out pretty soon Ubuntu has/is trojans.

What we are talking here is about an intentional privacy leak which is brushed off as if they can do anything they please just because they make the distro.

There are different layers. I can trust them with the binaries but not with anything else. Or I can trust them with Ubuntu One, but only with what I put there. Or I can trust them sending all the queries to Amazon.

It's a continuum but implying that one level of trust involves everything else is naive.


Nope. Not trust, because they are open source and I can read the source code and I do read source code. Although this is kinda derailing my argument. I am saying, they don't have my data - not voluntarily if I accept your argumentation and assume they are collecting it without my consent, if this is the case; this will open a can of worms.


Unless you compile the whole distro and all updates on your own, you still have to trust Ubuntu that the code they ship was actually built from source packages unmodified from the one you just checked.

So you do have to trust them. They could easily have shipped a version of Chrome that sends the browsing history (or your password keychain) to Canonical while shipping source code that doesn't contain that feature.

Of course this doesn't change the fact that I really do want my OS ad-free. It does mean however that I trust them not to violate their promises as well as not to ship spyware.

If it gets out that they did either, it's the moment that everybody stops using Ubuntu which really doesn't help them in their (apparently perceived evil) monetization schemes.


That's not just trust in them, it's partly trust in the community that if they shipped a malicious browser, say, someone would notice and cry foul.

Offering source that doesn't match the binaries doesn't stop someone monitoring their own network traffic. And if you recompile the binaries with the same settings, the hashes should match.


Trust is certainly a large component. But it's also control: In lazy moments I sometimes wireshark my traffic to see who's phoning out and what kind of data they send. I'm sure other people are doing this, are checking the code going into daemons, etc.

Applied to this situation I could see my queries going to canonical's servers but I have no idea what happens then. That's only trust and no control.


That doesn't really follow. Just because they can do something worse doesn't mean they can just get away with doing something less bad.

What if Ubuntu uploaded some phrases from your local documents to show you better results or ads? Is that acceptable? What about uploading entire documents, keystrokes, Google search terms etc. to better target ads?

You trust them enough to run their entire OS right? What if it was Microsoft that did this to improve Bing instead of Ubuntu? Why are so many people running Windows if they don't trust Microsoft already?


"These are not ads because they are not paid placement, they are straightforward Amazon search results for your search."

both ads and affiliate links make money when you click on them and buy something (nobody would buy ads if they didn't result in sales in one way or another)

The precise details of how they are paid for is almost irrelevant. I appreciate affiliate links in search results like this are much better than paid placement ads, but to say they're totally different things is untrue.

If Amazon didn't offer an affiliate scheme, would Ubuntu still be so keen to integrate their search results in the same way?


This is my thought exactly.


>These are results from underlying scopes, surfaced to the Home lens, because you didn’t narrow the scope to a specific, well scope.

This sounds kinda buzzword-ish and ignores the fact that people, basically, don't need Dash to do any of that stuff.

>Don’t trust us? Erm, we have root. You do trust us with your data already.

Chilling.

All I trust Ubuntu is they don't intentionally leak data. It's not like I store it on their hard drives.

Frankly I was more relaxed about this whole Amazon thing before Mark bothered to write the article. Now, I think it might not be so bad to consider another distro in the future.


sounds like famous last words:

"You have zero privacy anyway," Scott McNealy told a group of reporters

-8<------

[Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one?

Zuck: People just submitted it.

Zuck: I don't know why.

Zuck: They "trust me"

Zuck: Dumb fucks.

-8<------------------

"Twenty minutes compared to never, that's a lot. Our customer, the (U.S.) Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), would get very upset (if) somebody looks in their database," Ellison said.

-8<----------------------

Note, that S3 and EC2 have all the right certifications too.


He's basically saying that they're integrating Amazon because (besides the obvious reason that that's how they make money) it's the most useful service for the user besides searching their local files&apps. Really? We're that deep in the consumerism mindset that any search I do you're immediately trying to sell me something?

I'm resisting as hard as I can. Besides food, energy, and transportation, I could count all the purchases this year and I would probably barely reach 20.


>"We're that deep in the consumerism mindset that any search I do you're immediately trying to sell me something?"

I use Amazon for reviews on basically every consumer product out there, but especially for movies and books. And between "Lists", "So You'd Like To's" and the ability to browse the reviews of users with common tastes, it's a great recommendation and discovery tool. If anyone uses one better, I'd love to see it!

So while I'm not sure about integration in an OS, Amazon is a very useful site for garnering information on all kinds of things. Especially so since they can't, as a non-American, sell me half the products I look up.


Totally agree. Plus, I'm not sure users are asking for it that much.

It's been years since I have magnatune tab in amarok, I never used it. Paid services, gtfo my applications. I know where you are if I need you.


But surely you accept that you're the minority?

It's very clear to me that Ubuntu is targeting mainstream users. The type of users who don't consider where their "search data" is going. They just see that instead of going to Google, they can click the Ubuntu dash and search from there for anything - files, music, products, or just vanilla web searches.

What Ubuntu is doing here will certainly piss off hackers, but mainstream users? It's probably not going to bother them much. They might even find it convenient.


Given the wide array of Linux distro options, why would anyone choose one with this sort of junk included?

Remember all the hate for Windows with crapware preinstalled? (they stopped doing that, right?) How is this less distasteful?

Why would anyone download Ubuntu avec crap when Ubuntu sans crap will be available via BitTorrent within hrs after release? Someone will fix this bug, obviously, immediately.

Clearly, Shuttleworth is getting tired of self-financing his charitable enterprise. But what is he thinking?

Disclaimer: I don't always run FOSS Unix, but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.


> Why would anyone download Ubuntu avec crap when Ubuntu sans crap will be available via BitTorrent within hrs after release?

Because, even if they do things like this, I'd trust an official image more than some file off Bittorrent. Of course, someone could start (another) fork, but getting momentum and name recognition takes time.


No ... there is still plenty of bloatware installed on HP/Compaq computers while Lenovo seems to have gotten the memo. I don't have much experience with other brands.


Because Ubuntu is the most widely supported distro out there. If someone releases a program for Linux odds are that there is a .deb or some installer that has been tested with an LTS Ubuntu release.

My days of being willing to google around for "how do I install program X version A in distro Y version Z" to install an MP3 player or whatever are long over.


My initial reaction to non-local search results in the Dash by default was one of dismay, but after reading this post by Shuttleworth, I've decided to reserve judgment until Canonical has worked out all the kinks. The source of conflict, I believe, is that Canonical is trying to serve three distinct market segments which will react very differently to the new feature:

* Enterprise customers deploying hundreds or thousands of desktops. They will love this feature, because it will allow them to customize which external and internal online sources employees will be able to search, and then they will be able to track all employee searches.

* Regular people -- that is, the kind of people who don't even know about HN. These people will also love non-local search in the Dash. They already search for everything on Google, buy everything through Amazon, and readily hand over all their intimate, personal information to FaceBook... without ever giving their own privacy a second thought.

* Power users who're aware of the privacy issues involved. Virtually everyone in this market segment, including me, feels strongly that non-local search should be offered only as an opt-in feature, if at all.

Viewed in this light, Canonical's decision to implement non-local search can at least be understood: they're trying to make their customers happy, but they've unintentionally pissed off the smallest of the three market segments above: power users. (Sorry for the harsh language; I can think of no better way to convey how a lot of Ubuntu power users feel about this.) Alas, power users may be the smallest of the three market segments above, but they have disproportionate influence over the other two. Disregarding the concerns of power users may not be a good idea in the long run.

In retrospect, Canonical could have -- indeed, should have -- handled the announcement of this feature much better. There was really no announcement; the news was just 'dumped' on the community on a third-party blog. Is this really how Canonical wants to treat power users?


Enterprise customers will love that their employees are being enticed to go visit amazon.com the whole time instead of doing work?

Not sure about regular users either, "I'm trying to run this program my grandson told me to run why does it keep sending me to amazon?"


Are power users such a small segment? The other two customers you're talking about here are very mythological in nature afaict. Enterprise? Where? Enterprise customers don't install the latest Ubuntu distro firmwide - they are just getting Windows 7 (maybe). They don't do Linux on the desktop by definition. And show me a 'regular user' whose Ubuntu install wasn't courtesy of some zealous grandson or nephew or boy/girlfriend or whatever.

Seriously, I want to know who these people are who have been using Windows their whole life, and who aren't technical, who at best could just barely grok that you can't run Windows apps on Linux, and who nevertheless are going ahead and installing this piece of shit. I want to meet one of these people and take their picture because, to me, it would like having my picture taken with a fucking unicorn. While you're at it, let's have a tablet running Unity that isn't someone's science project. Because all of this seems to figure a great deal in justifying the reasoning behind whatever wrong decision at Canonical folks are trying to justify this release.

Or, you know, every time Mark shits on the floor with this sort of thing we can try to figure out why it's actually not so bad after all.

Ubuntu was great back when Canonical was bringing innovation that benefited actual existing Linux users (your so-called 'power users') by smoothing the rough edges, with a view toward making it easier for people to make the switch to a Linux desktop. Somewhere along the way they lost the plot, and now it's just gimmicks and bullshit. Gimmicks and bullshit that are supposed to attract the layperson but haven't, and instead just piss off the people already using the thing (who are flocking to other distros btw).


I LOL'd, thank you.

I agree with this sentiment. It's something that has been going on for a long time. Even as far back as 2006, Canonical and the Ubuntu community seemed (to me, anyway) to be overly focused on convincing my mom to use Linux.

But here's the problem: my mom doesn't care what OS her computer runs as long as she can check her email. She doesn't care that she can hit the Windows key and search for stuff (she doesn't even know what that funny key does).

Traditional desktop Linux is for power users. Plain and simple. Everyone will be a lot happier once we all accept that fact.


Your point (which I agree with) would have been better made if you left it at the first paragraph. It quickly turned into an emotional rant.


[deleted]


> not ads because they are not paid placements

> it pays us to make your Amazon journey get off to a faster start

Pays how then? Indeed, this needs to be an opt-in feature. But then, as slick as Ubuntu can make it, one has to use Unity for this correct? So those who opt to use a superior (for them) DE should be unaffected?

Is Mark trying to kill Unity then?


>It seems to me that the FLOSS community is facing M$ 2.0. But then, hey, "please don’t feed the trolls."

I like how he was dismissing the concerns as FUD. I wish he just said it was about money, since it hard to employ 500 people to work on Ubuntu, instead of making it sound like Ubuntu is trying to enhance the user experience by forcing Amazon searches on people.


The use of "please don't feed the trolls" to dismiss widespread, valid concerns about your product is pretty obnoxious. I don't think this situation is a huge deal, but I don't think it is trolling either to point it out.


Especially when you conclude with a troll-esque affirmation like "we are root on your system anyway".


The privacy and liability issues here are significant - disclosure of searches of the local OS potentially revealing the names of documents to third parties - so I think that Ubuntu/Canonical needs to take those onboard and do some re-engineering. If I was running a business, school or government department and thinking about using Ubuntu I'd be reconsidering after reading this.

We'll just have to see what turns up in 12.10, but if Canonical are insistent upon heading in this direction then sadly that's a deal-breaker for me, and I won't be able to recommend Ubuntu to others.


As much as I admire and appreciate Ubuntu and all the hard work, time, and money Shuttleworth & Canonical have committed, you simply don't end a "setting the record straight on user concerns" piece with a veiled threat/warning about having everyone's root.


The problem is that I don't have enough screen real estate to have a search function that is literally "search everything for X".

Even Google the king of search separates it's searches down into different categories for pictures/video etc. What is the eventual endgame here anyway?

When I want to run an xterm, is it really necessary to spin off hundreds of HTTP requests to every retailer/social network on the planet to find stuff that's probably completely unrelated?

I run software programs probably 100x-1000x more than I do online shopping for anything.

Sure you can do Start+A to get direct to application search, but MS has spend the last almost 20 years training us that "Start gets your programs".

In fact even Metro for all of it's fault, still knows that it's important to give people a nice uncluttered list of programs when they ask for them.


Rather than address concerns, straight up snark on Twitter. https://mobile.twitter.com/ubuntu/tweets


I'd like to see the real thinking (and data if there is any) behind this decision. Did they do some tests where they asked new users to find and buy a book, and did those users try searching in unity for it?

Or did someone say "How can we get affiliate links into Ubuntu as a source of income?"

He seems to be suggesting this is user led (or at least, aimed at making a better experience for the users). Which I suspect is bullshit, but I could be wrong. I'm not an average user.


All the problems with this could be trivially avoided if it was a separate lens, rather than showing up in the home lens, which we expect to be searching our own computer.

I have opened a bug report for this: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity-lens-shoppin...


You're making a big assumption about the "problems". Ubuntu's problem is to make revenue, making it a separate lens will cut down the the searches to Amazon by a huge amount, almost no one will use the new lens, whereas now everyone is forced to look at Amazon results.

Making it search Amazon by default will raise much much more revenue.


But if users go elsewhere because of this sort of thing, Ubuntu doesn't make money either.

To be fair, I'm sure many end users won't care. But I think they have a serious problem with advocates - people like me who would recommend Ubuntu to others. I already feel less comfortable recommending it if it's going to do things like this.


It also doesn't make it acceptable to me. For it to be acceptable to me there needs to be no integration with Amazon at all.


No thank you sir. No thank you.


This feature is totally useless for Ubuntu users from countries like India where Amazon is not present.


Ok, but where will we go from here? If there will be 100 sources of online search, will it make 100 HTTP requests on every search? Or will there be yet another (I'm sure it will be closed-source) search engine that will "aggregate" other search engines?


Ubuntu: EOL-ed at 12.04?


Wow. What utterly transparent bullshit. I would have much preferred honesty about his desire to generate revenue. I could respect that.


XEX


>We are not telling Amazon what you are searching for. Your anonymity is preserved because we handle the query on your behalf. Don’t trust us? Erm, we have root. You do trust us with your data already.

Wait, so my personal local file search keywords are sent to both Ubuntu and Amazon? If anything, that's only slightly better than just Amazon having them along with the IP address.

And, no, you don't have root or control of my data, unless you're telling us about some backdoors you're inserting into Ubuntu.

>Here’s a quick Q&A on the main FUD-points.

FUD? Really? Is he trying to imply the outrage is manufactured by Microsoft or Oracle?

This is crossing a line that an OS should not cross. What next? Showing me local grocery results when I make a note to buy milk?

People are smart enough to pull up a browser to search for things to buy.


> And, no, you don't have root or control of my data, unless you're telling us about some backdoors you're inserting into Ubuntu.

There are many cases where code controlled by Canonical runs with root privileges: The installer, the package system, a whole host of daemons (that usually drop-privileges after starting but still, they start as root). Every time you install a package, that package can run arbitrary code with root privileges -- this is why you shouldn't install package archives / PPAs you don't trust.

Basically what he meant was you place ultimate trust in Canonical by letting them control every single binary on your machine.


He might well have slipped freudian style there, or perhaps doesn't actually know what Ubuntu does? I'm not up to speed as to whether Mark is a coder or a business man only.





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