Does Canonical make money off this arrangement? Definately
so there is a display of products/services the user never asked for, that results in a monetary gain by the company pushing them.
Id call that an ad.
"they're just diplaying relevant Amazon results"
How are these not ads? Especially when they have affiliate codes? I can't think of a reasonable definition of "ad" that doesn't include this.
From Wikipedia:
"Advertising is a form of communication for marketing and used to encourage or persuade an audience (viewers, readers or listeners; sometimes a specific group) to continue or take some new action. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common."
Sounds to me it's exactly the definition of advertising.