Comment 35 for bug 48734

After some of the comments I did look at some other *nix OS and distros and observed that quite a few do have open home directories too by default. There are however quite a few that apply protection.

It is just a question of which category Ubuntu wants to be in. At this point, it looks like the former which is a shame.

Microsoft Windows even protects user's files by default. IMHO, if we want to remain mediocre and not add protection, then we could at least provide an informative dialog in the installer or create user GUI to advise that the created user has a world readable home.

No opt-in to 'sharing' as its been called is plain ridiculous. With servers, sysadmins are responsible in this area, but this is Ubuntu - linux for human beings, on the desktop.