More evidence of Google's success in organizing the world's information and making it universally accessible: Payment card details for 19,000 Brits were recently found hosted in the search engine's web cache.

The details included the names, addresses, card numbers and expiry dates for UK-based holders of Visa, MasterCard and American Express holders, according to news reports. The information was available to anyone who knew the proper search query.

The data was originally posted to a website server located in Vietnam, presumably in error by data thieves who wanted to sell it to other scammers. Even after the site was shuttered in February, the information continued to live on in Google's web history cache until company employees finally purged it.

Many of the cards that were posted had already been canceled, a spokesman for a bank industry group said. Additional coverage is here and here. ®