The privacy and liability issues here are significant - disclosure of searches of the local OS potentially revealing the names of documents to third parties - so I think that Ubuntu/Canonical needs to take those onboard and do some re-engineering. If I was running a business, school or government department and thinking about using Ubuntu I'd be reconsidering after reading this.

We'll just have to see what turns up in 12.10, but if Canonical are insistent upon heading in this direction then sadly that's a deal-breaker for me, and I won't be able to recommend Ubuntu to others.