I know bringing things from the real world into the digital realm often results in badly overstretched metaphors. Allow me this one; are your belongings really yours if you forget to lock the door?
It's not about ownership, it's about privacy. Yes, people are allowed to look at your stuff if you leave it in a public place.
Edit: it's even stronger in this case, because it's your own equipment that is providing the data to anyone who asks politely (using industry-standard requests and no impersonation or other fraud).
But you're not in the living room. You asked for the data politely and the server sent the data to you. It even put your address on it to deliver it over the public internet.
> Allow me this one; are your belongings really yours if you forget to lock the door?
Practically, it depends on where you live. In major urban areas: no they're gone and they probably aren't coming back. Insurance might replace some of them.
In the sticks? Most people don't lock their doors, even if they shut them.
> I know bringing things from the real world into the digital realm often results in badly overstretched metaphors.
Except this metaphor is already stretched beyond breaking. An index isn't even a copy.
Copying a set of publicly available read-only files is not theft (you still have your copy I haven't deprived you of it).
But we're not even talking about copying your files, just the names you've assigned to them. And in his proposed form, even allowing you to remove the names from our index.
Pretty kind treatment for a copy that you've given me when I asked for it.
Your belongings are really only yours to the extent that social contract (ie the law) defines them as such or you are able to prevent other people from taking them. Everything else is an illusion.
Edit: it's even stronger in this case, because it's your own equipment that is providing the data to anyone who asks politely (using industry-standard requests and no impersonation or other fraud).