Stallman On Unity Dash: Canonical Will Have To Give Users' Data To Governments

Giorgio Maone writes "Ubuntu developer and fellow Mozillian Benjamin Kerensa chatted with various people about the new Amazon Product Results in the Ubuntu 12.10 Unity Dash. Among them, Richard Stallman told him that this feature is bad because: 1. 'If Canonical gets this data, it will be forced to hand it over to various governments.'; 2. Amazon is bad. Concerned people can disable remote data retrieval for any lens and scopes or, more surgically, use sudo apt-get remove unity-lens-shopping."

Comments

sad but true

[Anonymous Coward]

if a company collects any data on you it's inevitable the government will try and take it.

Re:sad but true

[aaron552]

If anyone collects data on you it's inevitable the government will try and take it

Fixed

Re:sad but true

[Lumpy]

They dont have to take it. It's available for dirt cheap at LexisNexis. I can buy enough data on you to freak you out. All I need is a name and an address and I can get your social Security number and pretty much everything else.

This is what most nutjobs don't understand. Stop worrying about the government, because corporations are already harvesting you and selling it to the government at a deep discount.

Re:sad but true

[Beardo the Bearded]

That's why it's more important to give them false information 25% of the time than it is to worry about who or what is tracking you.

Poison the well.

Re:sad but true

[fredprado]

He may have a lot of radical opinions, but none of them is based on madness as you suggest. You may disagree with many of his opinions, but you cant deny that he accurately predicted 20 years ago a lot of the problems we are facing nowadays with the government and corporation increasingly pressing for control and using new technologies against privacy.

Re:Don't use Ubuntu

[mumblestheclown]

I was walking across a bridge one day, and I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump off. So I ran over and said, "Stop! Don't do it!" "Why shouldn't I?" he said. I said, "Well, there's so much to live for!" He said, "Like what?" I said, "Well, are you religious or atheist?" He said, "Religious." I said, "Me too! Are your Christian or Buddhist?" He said, "Christian." I said, "Me too! Are you Catholic or Protestant?" He said, "Protestant." I said, Me too! Are your Episcopalian or Baptist? He said, "Baptist!" I said, "Wow! Me too! Are your Baptist Church of God or Baptist Church of the Lord? He said, Baptist Church of God!" I said, "Me too! Are your Original Baptist Church of God or are you Reformed Baptist Church of God?" He said, "Reformed Baptist Church of God!" I said, "Me too! Are you Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1879, or Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1915?" He said, "Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1915!" I said, "Die, heretic scum!" and pushed him off.

Welcome to the world of Linux distributions. Who can figure out the mystery of the sub 2 percent combined desktop market share?

Re:Pretty much always the case with online service

[Captain Hook]

If you don't want anyone to know what you're doing online, don't do things online.

Some how I think you've missed the point.

Re:Don't use Ubuntu

[Qwavel]

"their intentions obviously aren't very nice if they're doing it"

Based on what we know of them so far, I'd say that they are just trying to figure out a way to make some money, not be evil.

Personally, I hope they are successful in making money, and if there users feel that this latest initiative is the wrong approach then I hope they will respond in a constructive manner and not abandon Ubuntu.

Re:sudo apt-get install shred

[kthreadd]

Then install debian.

Stallman's organization maintains a list of approved distributions.
Debian is not there, so he won't recommend it.

Alienating your user base

[ntropia]

Putting aside any judgements for a moment, one could try to see the desire of Shuttleworth to push Linux in the mainstream, and this could be good... somehow.
But then, from Shuttleworth's words:

"It makes perfect sense to integrate Amazon search results in the Dash, because the Home Lens of the Dash should let you find *anything* anywhere"

Seriously? it should "let me find"? You put tons of advertises in user's computers *and* tons of user's data on Amazon servers and you didn't provide it as opt-in feature? And I can't even disable it [until a rushed update came out]?
Good job! You're alienating the most important thing you gained so far, your users. You know, not only it is important to bring Ubuntu in the mainstream: you need to be sure you don't get there alone, you know?

It seems another case of "shut up, we know better than users what users really want".
Do you?

Re:Mission Creep

[leromarinvit]

So Stallman isn't entitled to have an opinion on these subjects? Or is he just not allowed to voice it, whether asked or not? This is his personal website you're talking about.

Tell me, what qualifies you to say that campaign finance, gun rights, and minimum wage laws are none of Stallman's business?

Re:Don't use Ubuntu

[EmperorOfCanada]

With the addition of this feature Ubuntu was crossed off my list. Until now it was Ubuntu for desktops and CentOS for servers. Now it it Mint for desktops and still CentOS for servers. Wow that was hard. Mint is prettier anyway.

Again some MBA was let loose with his spreadsheet. He crunched some numbers and everybody when woooooo. There are all kinds of bad things that look good when put on a spreadsheet. A really nice bold bottom line doesn't make them less bad; it just makes making a bad decision seem better.

Ethics should apply in your life

[betterunixthanunix]

Stallman lives by a particular ethical code. Despite the widespread belief that people should separate their ethical beliefs from their work, Stallman does not actually do so, and thus if he believes that Amazon is doing unethical things (which is not really a stretch), he is not going to support the idea of taking his software (which is part of the basis of Ubuntu) and using it to support Amazon financially. I do not see why he should be criticized for that, any more than people should be criticized for refusing to seek employment with companies whose behavior they object to.

Re:Don't use Ubuntu

[s4m7]

Mint makes money through their default search engine redirect, or in other words, by selling your keyword searches. Which is exactly what Ubuntu is doing. They've just been doing it for longer.