CNET's Ina Fried pointed out that Chrome will actually talk to Google.com a lot, if users don't change its default settings. From her piece on the Chrome's "Omnibox" feature:

"Provided that users leave Chrome's auto-suggest feature on and have Google as their default search provider, Google will have access to any keystrokes that are typed into the browser's Omnibox, even before a user hits enter.

What's more, Google has every intention of retaining some of that data even after it provides the promised suggestions. A Google representative told CNET News that the company plans to store about 2 percent of that data -- and plans to store it along with the Internet Protocol address of the computer that typed it.

In theory, that means that if one were to type the address of a site -- even if they decide not to hit enter -- they could leave incriminating evidence on Google's servers."

Cutts acknowledged that "Chrome will talk to the current search service to try to offer useful query/url suggestions."

His take: "I love this feature, but you can turn it off."

UPDATE: Matt suggested an elaboration in a comment below ...