According to two separate investigations over the past few days, in fact, Shuttleworth's explanation was not entirely correct, and users' information might be more exposed to Amazon servers than they might realize.

Ubuntu community manager Jono Bacon followed up on Tuesday with news that searches will be encrypted, but today he also announced that Canonical is working on a kill switch for the Amazon search results feature.

Revenue for Canonical

For those who missed the original story, Ubuntu Linux 12.10 Quantal Quetzal--a second beta version of which is due today--now integrates Amazon results into searches conducted through the Unity desktop Dash.

So, search for taxes from there and your results will include not only local files on your computer but also tax-related items for sale on Amazon. Canonical, in turn, will receive a small portion of any sales generated on Amazon this way through affiliate fees.