A difference of opinion about desktop searching

Yesterday, Marc Orchant pointed at an article in The Washington Post about the state of desktop searching. When I read the article I must admit to being pleased that I'd chosen Google as my desktop search tool as the article pretty much validated Google as, currently, the best of the options.

Today, Chris Pirillo, has entered the fray in defence of Copernic. Chris made some thoughful points about Copernic and I might have another look at their product as a result, at some point in the future. Chris goes on to argue that the line between local and network data should not be blurred.

I'm not so sure. I like that a Google web search reminds me that I have data locally about the topic I'm interested in. I have over 175,000 files on my laptop. If an issue comes up at work I'd like to be reminded that I have several documents on the subject I've used before and filed away, ready to be brought out and used again, whilst I'm searching the internet for topical information on the subject at hand. I'm not sure if he meant it or not, but Chris makes a veiled suggestion that in using Google as your Desktop tool you may end up with your chat logs (or some other locally held personal information) on the internet by mistake. Or perhaps Chris was only suggesting that less geek like users just might not get that some results are being returned from local sources.

I think that users will view the issue in terms of the criteria they might have for selecting the tool in the first place: Does the tool make searching ALL sources of data easier? Are the searches accurate? Are the searches fast? The criteria will not include: "does this blur the line between local and network data?" I guess this is fine whilst you trust that the providers of desktop searching will not trespass onto your local data and load it onto their servers. I trust that Google, Yahoo and MSN won't do that today. But will it always be that way?