I find that Spotlight is the worst kind of security risk because all a hacker or snooper has to do is type in the generic part of a credit card or bank number and Spotlight will instantly deliver up the rest of your personal account number plus a link to where any related information about you can be found anywhere in any form on your hard drives. (See Apple description below.) Also Spotlight indexes Meta files such as the ones that become invisible but are still there when you delete something from MS Word (remember how that data they thought was erased got some British politicians in trouble.)

This is what Apple says about Spotlight- which scares me!

"No matter what, where, or how old, Spotlight will find it instantly. The revolutionary search technology in Mac OS X Tiger, Spotlight searches not only files, folders, and documents, but also Mail messages, Address Book contacts, iCal entries, System Preferences, and even photos. And because Spotlight is part of the core operating system, it updates instantly and delivers results the moment you start typing."

Apple is very, very reluctant to reveal that there is a way to turn Spotlight off and even more reluctant to reveal how to do it. Unfortunately, when you do turn Spotlight off, you lose the ability to search in any other way.

I got rid of a brand new G5 that only ran on Tiger to replace it with the previous model G5 that still could run on Panther because of this problem with Spotlight and the additional problem that many printer and other drivers will not work with Tiger, including a printer that Apple sold as a promotion with Tiger-only G5's. I settled for a lot less in the computer, including just a single density drive, for the same price, but it was worth it to be able to search without Spotlight and to use my peripherals.

HOW TO TURN SPOTLIGHT OFF AND ON AT THE UNIX LEVEL, WHICH IS THE ONLY WAY TO STOP IT COMPLETELY.

HOWEVER WITH SPOTLIGHT TURNED OFF YOU WILL LOSE ALL ABILITY TO USE FIND UNDER THE FILE MENU.

NOTE:
FORCE QUIT WILL NOT STOP SPOTLIGHT AND THE SPINNING BEACHBALL THAT LOCKS YOU OUT OF EVERYTHING. A RESTART IS THE ONLY ESCAPE WHEN THAT HAPPENS, IF YOU DON'T HAVE TIME TO SIT AND WAIT FOR IT TO FINISH.

IMPORTANT WARNING:
SPOTLIGHT INDEXES META FILES AND HIDDEN MATERIAL IN FILES INCLUDING THE CHANGES AND DELETIONS THAT BECOME INVISIBLE BUT ARE STILL THERE IN MICROSOFT WORD.

UNLESS YOU SPECIFICALLY SEARCH FOR SOME OF THAT INVISIBLE INFORMATION YOURSELF, YOU WILL NOT KNOW THAT SOMEONE ELSE SEARCHING FOR SPECIFIC DATA LIKE A CREDIT CARD NUMBER CAN FIND IT THROUGH SPOTLIGHT'S INDEX THAT INCLUDES INVISIBLE DATA.
YOU CAN TURN OFF DRIVES AND FOLDERS, ETC., INDIVIDUALLY THAT YOU DO NOT WANT SPOTLIGHT TO INDEX BY USING THE SYSTEM PREFERENCES UNDER SPOTLIGHT.
MOST PEOPLE TELL SPOTLIGHT NOT TO INDEX THEIR E-MAIL.
YOU CANNOT TURN OFF SPOTLIGHT ENTIRELY UNLESS YOU GO TO THE UNIX LEVEL, AND THIS IS HOW TO DO THAT:

GO TO:
Boot Drive
Utilities
Terminal

FROM HERE ON YOU MUST USE ARROW KEYS BECAUSE YOU ARE IN UNIX AND THE MOUSE WILL NOT WORK

The window will give you a screen that has:
Last login xxxxxx
Welcome to Darwin
johndoescomputer powermac-g5$
HIT RETURN
After the $, in the gray block, type sudo pico /etc/hostconfig
HIT RETURN AND YOU WILL BE ASKED FOR YOUR ADMINISTRATOR
password:
WHAT YOU TYPE IN WILL NOT APPEAR ONT HE SCREEN AT ALL
ARROW KEY DOWN TO
spotlight
PUT AFTER THE =- YES in capitals, NO in capitals, followed by the - hypen =-NO- equalsignhyphenNOhyphen (to turn Spotlight back on you go through this same process and put in YES)
HIT CONTROL X
Then type a Y to confirm it is to be saved.
Exit window
RESTART COMPUTER