No, I don't think there's an actual person out there watching or listening to you, but it's just as intrusive if a machine does it, so...

Thank you! I hadn't heard of duckduckgo.com, but I will give it atry. I've been looking for alternatives to Google and I've tried Bing, but I didn't really like it. Which, I guess, just goes to show what a big hold these big machines have on you.