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Google Error Leaks Website Owners' Personal Information
itwbennett writes: A Google software problem inadvertently exposed the names, addresses, email addresses and phone numbers used to register websites after people had chosen to keep the information private.
The privacy breach involves whois, a database that contains contact information for people who've bought domain names. For privacy reasons, people can elect to make information private, often by paying an extra fee. But Craig Williams, senior technical leader for Cisco's Talos research group, discovered that the privacy settings for domain names registered through the company eNom were being turned off right at the time when the domains were up for renewal, starting around mid-2013. Williams contacted Google, and in about six days the privacy settings had been restored. In a notice, Google blamed a "software defect." Cisco said in a blog post that some 282,867 domains were affected.
Yup. They should have as much privacy as any home owner, car owner, anyone who has been party of a court case, holds a business license, contributes to political actions in the state of california and i'm sure a lot of other activities subject to public records searches.
But seeing how domain names are often treated like property, i'm not sure why it isn't expected to be treated a lot like property.