i don't see how this is funny. i'm sorry.
and you kind of unwittingly made my main point: that we could create a dataset that rivals Google's etc, but it would be a freely available pool of information. information is valuable in today's world, and this could help change the value of said data. hide in plain sight, as it were.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not laughing. Maybe "funny" was the wrong word - more like "interesting" would be more suitable.
Anyway, I doubt megacorps like Google would allow creation of such a project. Sorry, but the truth is it would hit them pretty hard, so it's obvious they would do everything in their power to stop this.
all the more reason to try. :)