Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Ubuntu is a free product. Canonical should not be able to find out if I (specifically me or my organization) allocates or runs 1 or 10000 instances of Ubuntu I agree with the message behind this and obviously Canonical and Microsoft are both being extremely gross. But Ubuntu as a binary image (or source code) is a very different product than a VM with Ubuntu pre-installed and pre-configured, which is what you paid…
Both Microsoft and Canonical are for-profit enterprises. To quote the old native american (?) fable: You knew what I was when you picked me up.
I don't think that most of the people have a problem with that. The problem is being sucked-in to something without ever agreeing into.
In the era of privacy sensitivity (which I think is healthy), being watched in a place and prodded from a different channel is disturbing.
I don't mind people trying to reach me with the hope of sales based on information I've provided to them, but this is too far.
Also it removes two veils from both companies at once:
1. It seems Microsoft still has sneaky tactics, but they're more invisible.
2. Canonical is somewhat more aggressive and greedy than it seems, and Ubuntu desktop is just a freemium product, or another capturing device for further vendor lock-in.