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Ubuntu 16.04 Will Not Send Local Searches Over the Web By Default

Posted by timothy on from the better-path-to-wisdom dept.

jones_supa writes: Canonical introduced Amazon Product Results as part of Ubuntu 12.10, which meant that local searches performed by a user in Dash were also sent online. This made many Ubuntu users spill their coffee and got criticism from EFF and FSF as well. The so called "Shopping Lens" had to be manually disabled if that kind of search behavior was not desired. Finally after years, Canonical is reacting to the negative feedback and respecting users' privacy, so that Ubuntu 16.04 (the next Long Term Support release) won't send local searches over the web by default. The Amazon search feature is still available for those who explicitly want to use it.

2 of 102 comments (clear)

  1. Follow the money by fishwallop · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The likeliest explanation is that Amazon is no longer paying Canonical enough money for this to be default behavior.

  2. Re:Really Canonical? by DrXym · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Most likely they're not making as much money as they thought and so they're turning it off.