I'm actually not sure after reading both again -- Shuttleworth seems to imply that they're not doing this for money, but he doesn't explicitly say it.
Either way, these search results are distinctly different from the ads in the launcher that people were talking about a couple weeks ago, but everyone seems to be mixing the two up.
Both can be easily disabled, though. And searching your own machine is still an option.
I find it very hard to believe that anyone, let alone the presumably technologically proficient people at Canonical, would actually think that sponsored search results are useful. When was the last time anyone clicked a sponsored Google result?
Either way, these search results are distinctly different from the ads in the launcher that people were talking about a couple weeks ago, but everyone seems to be mixing the two up.
Both can be easily disabled, though. And searching your own machine is still an option.