Are you talking the Chrome omnibar suggestions, or google.com search bar? I'm not sure the difference matters. Anyway, a thoughtful person can probably tell t

Are you talking the Chrome omnibar suggestions, or google.com search bar? I'm not sure the difference matters. Anyway, a thoughtful person can probably tell that means their partial queries are being sent to Google ("knowledge that it's happening", as I said above), and adjust it if that bothers them. With this Safari thing, it sounds like your queries are silently sent to Apple, in addition to Google or whoever your preferred search engine is. So, not only are they being sent somewhere without explicit consent, they are sent somewhere other than the place you explicitly consented to, in a way you won't see unless you dig into config dialogs/manuals and/or packet sniffers. Am I factually wrong on how this behavior works? Am I being too flexible in ethical gymnastics to avoid condemning Google, while condemning Apple? It was hard to articulate the difference, so frankly maybe it's just that I like Google more. But I think it's fair to say that for me personally, Google Instant is more transparent and fair than how this Apple behavior sounds. Also, to be honest, I haven't used Yosemite. I don't know if that invalidates my opinion. Maybe I should at least not form an opinion in this flame-fest of half-baked arguments from both sides.