CEOs use the excuse of "shareholders" because it sounds better than "I wanted to maximize my bonus." That isn't all bad-- seriously everyone wants to maximize their bonus, including me!
As as an aside, I really doubt Unity is planning on installing malware even if they could through the Steam or Apple stores (which they probably can't). They probably just want to do better ad tracking. Is this ethical? I don't know enough to say. But a mom and pop or private company could do the same thing.