Public bug reported: See this from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a well respected "international non-profit digital rights advocacy and legal organization" (as described on Wikipedia): https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/10/privacy-ubuntu-1210-amazon-ads- and-data-leaks
Obviously, despite some improvements that have came late in the 12.10 development cycle, there are still serious privacy concerns with the unity shopping lens. To be more precise, here are the main problems to be fixed according to EFF: - Disable "Include online search results" by default. - Explain in detail what Canonical does with search queries and IP addresses, how long it stores them, and in what circumstances it gives them to third parties. - Make the Search Results tab of the Privacy settings let users toggle on and off specific online search results, as some users might want Amazon products in their search results, but never anything from Facebook. Here is another related bug: #1055952 Direct data leaking to Amazon: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity-lens- shopping/+bug/1055952 ProblemType: Bug DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.10 Package: unity-lens-shopping 6.8.0-0ubuntu1 Uname: Linux 3.5.6-030506-generic x86_64 NonfreeKernelModules: wl ApportVersion: 2.6.1-0ubuntu6 Architecture: amd64 Date: Tue Oct 30 06:35:38 2012 InstallationDate: Installed on 2012-02-12 (260 days ago) InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot" - Release amd64 (20111012) MarkForUpload: True SourcePackage: unity-lens-shopping UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to quantal on 2012-09-28 (31 days ago) ** Affects: unity-lens-shopping (Ubuntu) Importance: Undecided Status: New ** Tags: amd64 apport-bug quantal running-unity -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1073114 Title: No respect of privacy - Implementation of EFF recommandations required To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity-lens-shopping/+bug/1073114/+subscriptions -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs