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Canonical Targets Ubuntu Privacy Critic

New submitter bkerensa writes "A member of Canonical's Legal Team recently sent a email to a critic of Ubuntu's privacy settings to insist he stop using the Ubuntu name and logo, even though it falls under 'fair use.' Micah Lee is the CTO of the Freedom of the Press Foundation and maintainer of the HTTPS Everywhere project. When Ubuntu began adding commercial results in its Dash search software, Lee wrote about the privacy concerns and created a site called Fix Ubuntu to show people how to turn it off. Canonical's legal department has now sent him a letter asking him to 'remove [the] Ubuntu word from you[r] domain name and Ubuntu logo from your website.'"

3 of 259 comments (clear)

  1. Dickish move... by jddeluxe · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ....but what would you expect???

  2. And the response is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    https://micahflee.com/2013/11/canonical-shouldnt-abuse-trademark-law-to-silence-critics-of-its-privacy-decisions/

    Ubuntu just lost a lot of street cred. Not only is the response appropriate (remove the logo, nothing else), attacking a site dedicated to fixing your product via legal means is not the way to get the Open Source community on your side. When your main product is based on Open Source, that's kind of like shooting yourself in the leg and wondering why the gun is making you bleed out.

    1. Re:And the response is... by umafuckit · · Score: 5, Insightful

      But this isn't a site promoting an alternative distro or selling a product. It's site about Ubuntu. So how does its presence weaken the Ubuntu trademark? It's like saying that this post weakens the trademark because it uses the term "Ubuntu". I bet Canonical won't bother going after http://ubuntu-artists.deviantart.com/ or http://podcast.ubuntu-uk.org/