How to report or block an inappropriate application in the Ubuntu Software Centre?

Question

While browsing through the Ubuntu Software Center I noticed a publication that I think is inappropriate.

Is there is a way to report possibly inappropriate applications?

Answer 1

You can ask questions of the Ubuntu Software Center team here.

Per Section 6 of the USC Terms of Use:

...Canonical is not responsible for any app provided by any third party. Should you reasonably believe that any third-party app you access through the Software Centre is in breach of any law, regulation or third party's rights, you should notify Canonical in writing at the address below. In doing so, please:* identify the material which you believe to be infringing;* identify what you believe this material infringes and why;* provide your name, email address, address and telephone number;* confirm that you believe in good faith that this material is infringing a law or third party's rights and that, to the best of your knowledge, the information you are providing is correct;*...

If you believe this to be the case, you should contact the USC team with the information requested in the terms of use.

If you are looking to block certain applications from the Software Center, you may want to take a look at this question.

While it only addresses hiding the entire category of commercial applications, it may give you some pointers on how to target a specific application.

Answer 2

It seems like there's two questions here, since reporting and blocking are extremely different acts.

maggotbrain's excellent answer presents the policy for requesting that content be removed from the Ubuntu Software Center. (Removed, in the sense that it will no longer be distributed through that platform, and thus nobody will see it in the Software Center--not just you.)

Remember though, as per the terms, "applications" are removed if they are:

in breach of any law, regulation or third party's rights.

The same presumably applies to non-program content too, like publications.

If one of those applies, you should feel free to go ahead and report it. Otherwise, remember that being offensive to you is not sufficient reason to prevent others from accessing something.

It is often good reason to avoid accessing it yourself though. So if you want to keep a particular item from appearing in the Software Center for you, and you find that existing questions about that don't address that, please feel free to post a new question.

While you mentioned blocking in your question here, you were really asking two different questions in one; you'll have better luck if you ask it separately. (When you do, please be sure to explain exactly what you mean by blocking. People might think you're trying to block access to a particular item for an entire corporate network, for example, which would be a entirely different question from what you appear to be asking.)