Asking for a commitment to respect the privacy of users from ubuntu

An episode that raised concerns about the privacy of users in ubuntu received great hype recently. Here we summarise the issues, and try to organise a protest to get more attention to these matters in the future.

We are not protesting because we "hate" ubuntu. On the countrary, we love ubuntu and don't want to quit cooperation with the developers. This is why, before quitting, we try to find a way to be listened and answered. Dialogue did not work so far. Here are some pointers to "failed" discussions and questions that were not answered.

http://www.mail-archive.com/ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com/msg04111.html

http://www.mail-archive.com/ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com/msg08993.html

https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu-start-page/+bug/405350

https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox-3.5/+bug/402767

A problematic decision of ubuntu: the default firefox home page

This wiki page is a freely editable open message to the ubuntu developers community. A simple matter (putting a google custom search in the default home page) is becoming a big concern for users privacy and in the future for the trust we all may put in ubuntu.

The default ubuntu home page in firefox shows a google search with an ubuntu border. It does not make it clear to end users that the search is not the standard google search. A short explanation and a link to further information should be added to the default search page.

Here is a summary of the questions that have been raised and received no response so far:

* It has been admitted here:

https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox-3.5/+bug/402767/comments/24

that ubuntu is gathering data and making money with the custom search. Why users are not informed? We feel that their permission should be asked.

* Why are the results different than the google ones? Can users verify what sites you are including and excluding from the default search? Could you make public the configuration of the custom search?

* What data do you collect and why?

* Do you make money out of the custom search? Isn't it at a cost, paid by users who see more prominent advertisement on their search results page?

* Why there is no clue in the default firefox home page about all these problems, and the fact that the search box does not send users to the *standard* google search?

* The default home page is not local, it is on the ubuntu servers. Why is that? It could be local.

* Can the launchpad cookie be associated to the queries that users submit? Are queries really anonymous? Are queries clustered by IP in some way?

The bug reporters strike

We, part of the ubuntu bug reporters and cooperators community, are fed up with the lack of proper communication on the issue reported above. We ask ubuntu to solve these problems. Moreover, and more important, we ask ubuntu to commit to never make such a mistake again.

We feel that we worked hard *with* ubuntu to improve it, and to publicize it, by installing the distribution to a wide number of users. We feel that we are an important part of the success of ubuntu. We consider ubuntu users *our* users and do not want them to be treated like they were.

Therefore, we ask ubuntu to add a "promise" to the list of items in the home page http://www.ubuntu.com regarding a commitment to respect of users privacy and of users trust.

We are now starting a strike. This will be organised in a distributed manner: everyone feeling that their trust is broken, will participate in the strike. There will be NO central entity organizing the strike, and/or deciding that the strike is over. The strike will consist in cutting and pasting (or posting an edited version of) the following text *instead of a reply* when our help is asked on bug reports, ubuntu questions and so on.

--- cut here ---

Unfortunately, I can not reply to your question. This is because there have been communication problems with ubuntu and these problems are still not solved on my own side. Instead of just quitting cooperation with ubuntu, I decided to suspend these activities for a while. This is because I love ubuntu and want to return to cooperation as soon as these problems are solved. You can find more information in the following web page

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/BugReportersStrike

I sincerely hope that the situation will get back to normal very soon and that I will be able to reply to your question.