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Built in ads in the Ubuntu Unity desktop? The future of Linux?

Unity menu with built in advertisements.
Unity menu with built in advertisements.

The Unity desktop for Ubuntu has a new feature. The placement of advertisements for items on Amazon related to the searches you perform with the Unity launcher. This is a new feature that will allow users of Linux to search for Amazon products as well as files and applications on their system. Is this a good thing or not? Linux has not included advertisements before; now the launcher has advertisements included that tell the user about products related to their searches. A new age of advertising or what? I have just bought a Radeon HD6670 graphics card for gaming and whenever I use it with Linux the screen is all messed up. The default graphics drivers that come with the kernel do not seem to work with this card at all. But there should be a failsafe driver I can make use of whilst I am installing the proper ATI drivers to fix this. The Radeon drivers that the kernel supplies seem to crash the graphical interface. It works perfectly with Windows 7 but I want to be able to use Linux with this card. I wonder what would come up if I searched for the Radeon cards in the Unity launcher if it supplies Amazon results when you search. There are lenses you may install for Reddit and Wikipedia; someone might create an Ebay lens as well.

ATI HD6670 PCIe.
ATI HD6670 PCIe.

I guess if Canonical have a deal with Amazon to display advertisements then is that really so bad? I wish they would get rid of the Unity interface altogether and develop something else; but that will not happen, they are set in their ways and nothing will change that at all. But the privacy implications are large considering that anything you search for using the launcher will be sent back to Amazon. This is not a good solution at all. The searches performed by the user should not be something that is made public knowledge. Sure every Google search you do is recorded by Google whether you have an account or not and Facebook use tracking cookies to track your web browsing habits; but sending all searches performed with the Unity launcher back to Canonical and Amazon is going too far in my opinion. This is a good reason to use the MATE desktop or KDE instead. The KDE launcher allows you to press the Windows key and search for what you seek; but will not send your data to a third party. There are some interesting comments on this issue here: http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2012/09/24/ubuntu_amazon_suggestions/. But the overwhelming consensus is to install another desktop environment like KDE.

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