It is a huge deal and has been since Google stopped passing referrers for signed-in users last October. That's because...
1) If it's a privacy thing, then Google is happy having a leak by giving these terms to advertisers
2) The data is not provided in a way that can be used by third party ad retargeting terms, giving Google a competitive advantage
3) Publishers can't use the data to better target with landing pages
4) Google Webmaster Central data only goes back for a short period of time, and if you haven't constantly been downloading your data, all your historic traffic information related to a term has gone poof.
1) If it's a privacy thing, then Google is happy having a leak by giving these terms to advertisers
2) The data is not provided in a way that can be used by third party ad retargeting terms, giving Google a competitive advantage
3) Publishers can't use the data to better target with landing pages
4) Google Webmaster Central data only goes back for a short period of time, and if you haven't constantly been downloading your data, all your historic traffic information related to a term has gone poof.