unity-design team mailing list archive

[Evan Huus <eapache@xxxxxxxxx>]

I believe the worry here is that the user isn't given a choice, it
just happens. There's no privacy agreement, no guarantee that the
songs you search for won't be sold to advertisers, etc. etc.

Canonical has had (to the best of my knowledge) an excellent track
record of not doing anything nasty like that, however one of the
reasons they have that reputation is because they've avoided doing
anything like this. A default install of Natty will automatically
contact the internet for only one reason: to check for updates (unless
maybe NTP is active by default? I forget. Regardless, time
synchronization does not use private information). Any other network
access occurs at the specific request of the user (ie opening a web
browser, email, gwibber, etc).

The problem with this music lens is that the user is given no clue
that it contacts the internet until it has already done so. A user
(hopefully) expects that opening a web browser will contact the
internet. The user has no expectation that the music lens would
contact the internet, especially since the other default lenses (Apps,
Files) never contact the internet at all.

A bigger concern from my point of view though is that all generic
searches (using the "Home" lens) go through the music lens as well,
and thus (I assume) through this internet search. If I use the home
lens to search for a private file by name, and that file name gets
sent to Amazon or Canonical, then we have a far more serious problem.
At least album and song titles don't contain truly personal
information!

Just my two cents,
Evan

On Mon, Oct 10, 2011 at 7:32 PM, Eylem Koca <eylemkoca@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> I don't understand why you think there is a privacy issue because of
> searching a song title. Nobody said any other information will be sent with
> the search query and as long as it stays that way, why would there be any
> issue? Of course, once you try to purchase a song, required information
> exchange has to be made but that is so anyway. If implemented cleanly, it
> wouldn't be any different than a Google search.
> The only possible issue here might be speed. I mean if every time a song
> query is made, an Internet DB will be accessed, the whole process may feel
> slow.
> Overall, I guess a quick solution is an option to turn-off the online search
> feature.
>
> Eylem
>
>
> On 10/10/2011 6:58 PM, Thibaut Brandscheid wrote:
>
> Houston, we have a problem
>
> Part I - The Problem
> I just read an interview on linuxuser.co.uk with Gerry Carr.
>
>> With this release, we’re bringing out the Music Lens, which offers a
>> Dash-like experience and allows you to use the search bar to search for,
>> let’s say, Abba – it’ll display all the Abba that you have locally on your
>> machine, and it’ll also display any Abba available in the Ubuntu One cloud,
>> and then also it will – and I’m not quite sure if this is going to land at
>> release, or just after – but basically it’ll also allow you to access all
>> the Abba that’s available on the Amazon Music Store or on the Ubuntu One
>> Music Store, so I can purchase that directly within the same Lens.
>
> After reading this I started Oneiric in VirtualBox and yes, there is a
> 'Available for Purchase' section in the music lens.
>
> Now, the problem:
> Dose this mean every time, I repeat, every time I search for a song on my
> computer with the Music Lens (11.10 or bigger) will query an DB in the
> Internet?
>
> If this is true, Ubuntu & I have a problem. A privacy problem to be more
> specific.
>
> I don't think that an average user expects that every time he enters a song
> title into the Music Lens it will be send through the net - I believe that
> he expects that every thing stays locally and will be processed on his
> computer as long as he dose not clearly interact with the net (browsing,
> uploading files to U1, chatting, using Gwibber ...).
>
> One big reason why I use Linux is that it doesn't send all kind of
> informations to companies (Amazon - if I would not care I would buy a Mac).
>
>
> Part II - Suggestion to solve the problem
> Okay, vented enough frustration, now something constructive.
>
> The approach of the file lens doesn't work here, it is not "possible" to
> store a Ubuntu One Music Store and Amazon Music Store title DB on Ubuntu
> locally to prevent sending of just tipped-in informations always through the
> Internet.
>
> My solution is as simple as powerful → a Shop Lens.
> What again a new lens, but wait. The shop lens could combine different
> sources and display search entries in categories. This would solve above
> raised problems. The user expects the shop lens to query online DB's to get
> results and it would avoid that every entered text phrase to the music lens
> would be send through the net (without user knowledge, and maybe without his
> accordance).
> It would also "debug" the unpleasant (and less liked) 'Apps Available for
> Download' in the application lens (I like the idea of 'Available for
> Download', but not in the App Lens - where I see it all times but use it
> only ~0.5% of the time).
>
> If the Shop Lens is extensionable by add-ons other vendors could add there
> own shop to it. This way it would be the perfect place to search for new
> input (free & paid) and for the user would be clear what he gets there
> (better than mixing different topics in to one lens → 'Available...' in
> App-Music lens).
>
> Uff, pretty long mail :)
> your turn
>
> Thibaut
>
>
> PS: I know, don't make lenses for everything. But this time I think it would
> be a good idea to separate local and online queries and to have one place in
> the system to search for new stuff.
> PPS: How to turn the 'Available for Purchase' function in Oneiric off?
>
>
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