Facebook's data center looks out over the 'Tibet of North America.' Photos: Pete Erickson/Wired.com

Ken Patchett ran Google’s Asian data centers for more than a year and a half, and he says it’s “B.S.” that the company treats its computing facilities as trade secrets jealously guarded from the rest of the world.

He actually writes the letters in the air with his finger. The B. And then the S.

Web giants like Google and Amazon are notoriously secretive about what goes on inside the worldwide network of data centers that serve up their sweeping collection of web services. They call it a security...