Does Ubuntu upload personal information by default and without permission now?

[Matthew Paul Thomas]

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Jo-Erlend Schinstad wrote on 11/10/11 12:43:
> ...
> 
> I had difficulties believing this to be true, so I tested it. I 
> searched for an artist of which I have no records, and sure
> enough, the music lense told me I could purchase it. I then
> disconnected from the network and searched again and this time, I
> got no advertisement. A very simple test that anyone can perform,
> and it indicated to me that the search was indeed being sent to
> some online service. Does this apply to all my searches? What else
> is being uploaded about me?
> 
> I was just about to sniff my network to see for myself when I came
> to my senses... If people even get the impression that they are
> being monitored by their own system, then Ubuntu has certainly
> lost. Technologies like Zeitgeist are great, but they also mean
> it's more important than ever that absolutely no information is
> being transmitted without asking permission first and that user
> always knows what is being sent. The feeling of loosing that
> confidence was not a good one.
> 
> ...


Apple had an equivalent privacy problem with the iTunes MiniStore five
years ago. <http://boingboing.net/2006/01/11/itunes-update-spies.html>

They fixed it by (a) making it opt-in, and (b) explaining it inside
iTunes itself. <http://daringfireball.net/2006/01/itunes_ministore>

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