Linked by Howard Fosdick on Thu 3rd Jan 2013 08:57 UTC
Proprietary software like Windows often includes surveillance code to track user behavior and send this information to vendor servers. Linux has traditionally been immune to such privacy violation. Ubuntu 12.10 now includes code that, by default, collects data on Dash searches. The code integrates Amazon products into search results and can even integrate with Facebook, Twitter, BBC and others as per Ubuntu's Third Party Privacy Policies. This article at the EFF tells how it all works and how to opt out of information sharing, while Richard Stallman himself comments here.
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Member since:
2012-11-05
Exactly. Oh no! A company that is giving away their work, with other forks already available, is selling my search info for marketing purposes, unless I decide to unclick an option!!! Oh, but they also legitimize non-free software by doing horrible things like letting users play mp3s!
You know what Stallman? I don't use Ubuntu, but now I jsut might, as this will allow a company to use ad revenue to fund continued open source development. And people wonder why some people call the FSF communist.