It's all about privacy and companies trying to get you to buy more things are the worst offenders of viruses and invasion of privacy on the web.
I assume that's because Bing and Google are paying them to think that (or inducing them to think [hope!] that via the promise of money)?
Don't personally care to check this assumption at the moment.
If Ubuntu's target market was more sophisticated they wouldn't be reviving the old "sponsored computer" model of fifteen years ago.
I put Ubuntu on just about everything, so do several other devs I know, but we don't use Unity, we have our own preferred environments... so while there is that angle to Ubuntu, I'm not sure how well that actually represents the reality of their installation base.
However, I also believe that Canonical is pivoting Ubuntu toward non-technical users because a) it differentiates Ubuntu; b) it offers room for growth; c)it allows them to pursue more diverse revenue streams.