I remember this being featured in the book Google Hacks. Pretty scary stuff.

So anyone want to guess how long it will be this time before the banks or the some flunkie in the government will start a class action suit against google for making this "available."

This is also an easy way to find checking account numbers. If you do a search for a common routing number, sooo many checking account numbers come up. I couldn't believe it.

I was curious about this... and put in the first 4 digits of one of my cards -- and the type of card. I didn't have sufficient time to go through the google search results given that there were thousands of results. I have no doubt that there are less is less than optimal protection of data by certain merchants. This is why I think it is necessary to check my credit reports, banking/credit card statements, etc. for anything that looks "curious". It reminds me of the zabasearch.com site -- Is it their responsibility that some protected information is on there? Me thinks not as they are simply a source that publishes and aggregates public information.

It is ridiculous that this hasn't been stopped yet. And Google - if your motto is "Don't be evil," how 'bout you do something proactive and fix this. Hell will freeze over before the banks or the credit bureaus or the government do anything.

Discover has an online application that you login to and it gives you a one time usable credit card number. I generally use this tool when I buy online.

Still, this is all scary stuff.

I work in a fast food restaraunt, and our credit card slips print with the last 4 digits of the card on the slip. I see many, too many, people simply throw these away. Sometimes I run out of cash and have to pay for my meal with a card, so one time when I got the slip I decided to test this. Simply by using those last 4 digits, card type, and my last name, I was able to find my own credit card information on Google.

The moral of our story: Don't throw away your last 4 digits with your name. It's easier than you may think to find the whole number!

@kidzmatter2me:

I don't believe that -- who exactly did you give your card number to and why did they post it online?

I googled the CC digits from the picture in this article and got two numbers :O

www.remotetechguy.com had a completely exposed database.

When I called up to tell them about it the best part was their greeting said they were, "the most reliable ACT database company". Yeah, ok.

Hey, my kids have that octopus plushie! Wait, where's my Amex card...

This has been public knowledge for years.

Here's another scary one. Back in the days of KaZaA, people would share their entire C: drives (til this day, I still don't know why). Doing a search for "resume", "receipt" or something similar gave you a lot of personal info.

Imagine getting someone's receipt from an online store (with CC numbers, expiration date, etc) and their resume (address, phone number, sometimes D.O.B). An ID thief's wet dream. Scary stuff.

@tvh2k: Some online retailers are run by people that just don't know what they are doing. They put excel spreadsheets (.csv) online with all the info on payments made to them and forget about it. I would like to support the smaller businesses but I just don't trust them to store my information properly.