Ubuntu's multisearch surprise

my complaint with the change is that it breaks some useful features in the standard google search. it is why in the past i would change the home page to the real google page. it is no longer possible to set a custom home page that loads for a new firefox window/tab.

this sound like it will be fixed. it was done so that the ubuntu devs could see which part of the UI users used to search. thats fair enough.

a separate issue is the revenue from google searches. google earn money from searches by showing adds. if you help drive traffic to google, they'll give you a cut of that money. when you use upstream firefox and search google mozilla get the cut [0]. lots of websites do the same (try using boingboing.net's search). it seems fair enough that ubuntu should do the same. (i am supprised that their licence to use the 'firefox' name allows them to divert the search income, but thats for mozilla and canonical to work out).

one question is how much information does canonical get about the searches, do they get a list of IP address and search terms? if so were do we find the privacy policy. will they start showing targeted ads on the ubuntu websites? will they start showing targeted ads in the ubuntu interface? i guess not, but it might reassure people to have an official statement.

[0]http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/154198/goog...