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Canonical

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Canonical
Basic information
Founded 2004
Legal Structure Private
Industry Computing
Also known as
Official website https://www.canonical.com/

Canonical is a software company best known for creating Ubuntu, an Operating system based on Linux. It is largely funded by South African billionaire Mark Shuttleworth.

Consumer-impact summary

Overview of concerns that arise from the company's conduct regarding (if applicable):

  • User freedom
  • User privacy
  • Business model
  • Market control

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Positives

Upstreaming in the Linux ecosystem

Alongside Red Hat and Google, Canonical makes up a substantial portion of upstream security patches in the Linux ecosystem. They maintain AppArmor,[1] a Linux security system that proactively manages threats, Snap,[2] a Linux appstore with sandbox support, and Livepatch,[3] a system to patch the Linux kernel without needing to reboot.

Incidents

This is a list of all consumer-protection incidents this company is involved in. Any incidents not mentioned here can be found in the Canonical category.

Tracking

Canonical collects user telemetry from Snap,[4] which is shipped by default in Ubuntu.[5]

Previously, Canonical sent local file search queries to their own servers, which were used to recommend ads on Amazon.[6] In 2014, this feature was removed.[7]

In 2018, telemetry tracking for hardware components, software configuration, and crashes were added in an opt-out model.[8]

Running apt update in the terminal shows an ad for Ubuntu Pro
Running apt update in the terminal shows an ad for Ubuntu Pro

Ad for Ubuntu Pro when using APT (2022.09 - Present)

In September 2022, Canonical started adding opt-out[9] ads for their Ubuntu Pro service when using APT.[10]

Products

  • Ubuntu

See also

Link to relevant theme articles or companies with similar incidents.

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References

  1. ↑ "AppArmor". AppArmor. Retrieved 16 Mar 2025.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  2. ↑ "The app store for Linux". Snapcraft. Retrieved 16 Mar 2025.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  3. ↑ "Livepatch". Livepatch. Retrieved 16 Mar 2025.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  4. ↑ "Snap Store metrics". Snapcraft. Retrieved 16 Mar 2025.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  5. ↑ "Installing snap on Ubuntu". Snapcraft. Retrieved 16 Mar 2025.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  6. ↑ Stallman, Richard (12 Jul 2012). "Ubuntu Spyware: What to do?". Free Software Foundation. Retrieved 16 Mar 2025.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  7. ↑ Hoffman, Chris (29 Oct 2014). "Ubuntu's Unity 8 desktop will remove the Amazon search 'spyware'". PCWorld. Retrieved 16 Mar 2025.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  8. ↑ "How to opt-out usage data collection in Ubuntu 18.04 (bionic)?". Super User. 2018-04-06.
  9. ↑ "updates - How to get rid of Ubuntu Pro advertisement when updating apt?". askubuntu.com. 2022-10-09.
  10. ↑ Sneddon, Joey (2023-01-26). "Ubuntu's New Terminal 'Ad' is Angering Users". OMG! Ubuntu.
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