Comment 8 for bug 1070598

I generally like Ubuntu and am actively using 13.10, but I am not as excited to promote others in using Ubuntu until the online Dash search feature is made opt-in (as I do care about my privacy so I have already turned off this capability). I know of many Linux enthusiasts who have switched to another distro simply due to this opt-out policy (and will likely never come back to Ubuntu), while many others like them are not hard to find on IRC or elsewhere. So, this has to be counter-productive with Canonical's goals to continue to build their community (and raise more money).

If Canonical needs money that badly, why do they not advertise their merchandise section better? They have nice t-shirts, pens, and the like, which I have bought in the past. This would provide not only money but also much needed word-of-mouth brand advertising by the people who use Ubuntu.

The current opt-out policy has the scent of Microsoft. So, I laughed in mild agreement when Mark Shuttleworth won the Big Brother Award (http://news.slashdot.org/story/13/10/28/2210220/) and also when RMS called Ubuntu "Spyware".

Please Canonical, I do not mind having the capability of my Dash to search online sources, but please ask your users first!