First, Watson does not send your documents over the Internet. Like you say, it sends only queries built based on the documents you are viewing. So for example, based on this page, Watson might form a query like “watson search computer sit” These queries most likely will not contain any sensitive information. Even if they do, most users query search engines without regard to the security issues inherent there — queries to search engines that users type are also transmitted over the internet.

Second, Watson will only find information for you when it’s open. So you’re always in control of whether it’s building queries from the documents you’re editing. It’s easy to close Watson when you start working on a sensitive topic, and open Watson up again when you’re doing less sensitive work.

Third, Watson doesn’t ever send any of the queries it builds to us — we don’t know anything about the contents of the documents you are viewing. The queries Watson builds are sent only to the information sources you choose. The sources Watson queries are totally configurable by you. If you trust MSN but don’t trust Google, you can configure Watson to search only MSN. You can also configure Watson to search just your desktop or file shares indexed by a desktop search tool like MSN Search Toolbar with Windows Desktop Search. Then no data will ever leave your PC, even if you keep Watson running all the time.

Finally, businesses that configure Watson for internal use have the option of configuring Watson to only search internal information sources, like the corporate intranet so that nothing ever leaves the corporate network because of Watson.

Give Watson a try and see what you think — http://www.intellext.com/