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Unity 6.8.0 has been released in the Ubuntu 12.10 Quantal Quetzal repositories today, along with updated default lenses, bringing many bug fixes as usual, along with an option to disable online results from showing up in Dash.

Starting with the latest Unity 6.8.0, you can disable Dash online search results by going to System Settings > Privacy > Search results, and setting "When searching in Dash - Include online search results" to OFF:


The option was added to Activity Log Manager (the privacy tool that lets you disable various files or other items from showing up in Dash)  a while back, but it required Unity 6.8.0 along with updated lenses to work.

Suggestions still show up in the Applications Lens after turning the above option to OFF, but these aren't really "online" results as they come from the Ubuntu Software Center.

Here's how the home lens looks like, after setting the "When searching in Dash - Include online search results" option to OFF:


And when the option is turn ON (this is the default behaviour):



The solution to disable online search results in Dash used in Ubuntu 12.10 is far from ideal, since you can't simply disable one online lens or scope and continue to use the others, but it was implemented in a hurry because of user complaints, so it's understandable. For the next Ubuntu  version, we might see a lot more options that lets you control what shows up in each lens, like the mockups you can see below:

Mockup

Mockup

Mockups via Sam Hewitt @ unity-design mailing list