Ubuntu Linux’s Amazon integration gets a thumbs-down from the EFF - schmidtlonst2001
Thither's been a considerable bit of feather-ruffling caused lately by Canonical, the party behind Ubuntu Linux.
Most late, naturally, was Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth's controversial announcement about the development scheme for the upcoming Ubuntu 13.04 "Raring Ringtail."
Electronic Frontier Foundation Shortly before that, it was the news that starting with Ubuntu 12.10 "Quantal Quetzal," the popular Linux distribution would integrate Virago shopping results into searches performed through and through the 1 dash.
Plenty of customer "feedback" greeted both developments, but the Amazon partnership was recently brought back into the limelight aside a assertion of disfavor from none new than the Lepton Frontier Foundation (EFF).
'It's nary longer their job'
"It's a major seclusion problem if you lavatory't obtain things on your own data processor without broadcasting what you're looking to the world," wrote EFF Web developer Micah Lee in a blog post on Monday. "In that location are many reasons why you wouldn't want whatever of these lookup queries to leave your computer."
It's also not just Amazon that gets to see your data, Robert E. Lee charges, only rather a number of third parties.
"Ubuntu's Third Party Privacy Policies page lists completely of the third base parties that they may send your search condition and IP address to, and states: 'For data on how our selected third parties whitethorn use your information, delight see their privacy policies'," he explains. "Put differently, once they give your data forth, information technology's no longer their trouble."
'Amazon has the ability to correlative'
Acknowledging Canonical's answer to concerns so far, Lee writes, "these changes are great, only IT doesn't change the fact that users' search queries mechanically get sent to third base political party companies without handsome users a chance to opt-in."
For instance, symmetrical when Amazon product images are tight over HTTPS instead of HTTP, "the fact that they are loaded directly from Amazon's servers instead of from Canonical's means that Amazon has the ability to related search queries with IP addresses," He explained.
One attainable solvent would be for Canonical to placeholder all third-party images and other content for Ubuntu users, Lighthorse Harry Lee suggested.
'Consider displaying a dialog'
In any even, the EFF wants few things from Ubuntu regarding this site, Gypsy Rose Lee said.
First, "let in online search results" should be out of action by default, he said.
"Users should constitute able to set up Ubuntu and now start using it without having to worry about leaking search queries or sending potentially private selective information to third party companies," Lee explained. "Since many users mightiness find this feature useful, consider displaying a dialog the kickoff fourth dimension a substance abuser logs in that asks if they would like to opt-in."
Canonical should also provide a detailed explanation of what it does with explore queries and IP addresses–including how long it stores them and when IT gives them to third parties–likewise as making IT possible for users to on/off switch on and off specific online hunt results via the Search Results tab in Privacy settings, he added.
'Make sure Ubuntu remains an exception'
Already in the works at the Be intimate is a sequel to Downwind's Monday post praising late Ubuntu privacy features "that we actually like," Lighthorse Harry Lee concluded.
Meanwhile, Windows and Mac users are already accustomed to having their data sent to third parties without their express consent, he noted; "permit's make trusted Ubuntu, like the Wildebeest/Linux OS at its heart, remains an exception to this."
Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/455512/ubuntu-linuxs-amazon-integration-gets-a-thumbs-down-from-the-eff.html
Posted by: schmidtlonst2001.blogspot.com
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