I have zero issue with this, and it's clearly labelled and explained. Of all the breaches in my privacy, this isn't one I'm worried about. Google gets 100% of my searches and email messages, so it's a question of who you trust.
In contrast, searching the local files on one's own computer or launching applications on one's own computer are private, local events that need not be shared with any third party.
Inherently private stuff just happens to leak out into the world now because Spotlight does web search too.
Regardless, it doesn't matter. It's simply ignorant to bitch about this, when the NSA literally intercepts all of this and exploits or introduces exploits into the software you use. This is fact. Apple at it's worst will present you an advertisement, big fucking whoop. Seriously, what is the risk? Annoyance? The NSA can wrap you around a pole and make it appear you were snorting 12kilos of coke a day. I am quite literally baffled by the sentiment on HN when I see people up in arms over convenience like this trumped up as if it were in violation of your rights. They added a 'learn more' link and explain what is going on. Yet the same people simply ignore the actual threat, repeatedly. Cowards.
Keep fighting them windmills. Because the real enemy fights back.
I'd rather be an idiot who gets angry about his TV phoning home to report every DVD and .avi file I've played (in the clear, for no apparent reason: there are no ads, recommendations or features of any kind on the set itself) than a defeatist who equates the futility of circumventing state surveillance with the futility of paying attention to one's outbound internet traffic.
I should have an active choice in how and who I expose my data. If LGe, Apple and friends can't be bothered asking people if they actually want their habits recorded, let alone bother to encrypt said data, expectations on storing, securing and using that data aren't exactly high.
It's not an irrational thing to weight the risk of state surveillance rummaging through my gmail to be a little less than some stupid home computer/router/NAS "feature" exploding and blowing me wide open to identify theft and financial fraud.
Theft and financia fraud? Do you search for you account numbers and passwords in spotlight???
When RealPlayer was grilled for bundling spyware which harvested the exact same data, why did their excuses ("hey we mentioned this in the EULA, plus you could've scrolled through the features and disabled it at install-time") not create the same placated reactions Apple seems to be achieving here?
"Opt-out of some part of this avalanche of b.s. information-leaking features serving little to zero actual benefit to the user" has always been a stupid, sleazy trend to monetize the very basics of computing and whilst I respect that most people don't give a damn and/or don't have the energy to give a damn, it's a user-hostile design pattern.
I switched to DuckDuckGo for the last couple of months. Works fine for 95% of my searches. The other 5 percent is related to local (to my country in Europe) searches, where Google is absolutely giving better results.