> Except, everything funded by my taxes has to be open, freely accessible, etc.
You must not be living in the U.S. Even as strong as the FOIA and public records laws are, there's a huge amount of information and records that are exempted from free access:
http://www.rcfp.org/browse-media-law-resources/digital-journ...
Google is using ReCaptcha as measure to get an unfair edge over competitors and make competing even more impossible.