I was unpleasantly surprised to see your post deliberately undoing the GP's attempt to obfuscate his number. Is your goal to bully GP into supporting privacy?
It doesn't matter the technical details of whether the number is easier to search, it's the intent I find disturbing about this.
What supposed intent do you find disturbing? Google wants to associate a credit card number with your login, and getting your phone number is a good way to do it. Someone created a throwaway account on a website, and wrote a post asking for phone numbers. Someone made the mistake of giving hers.
It doesn't matter the technical details of whether the number is easier to search, it's the intent I find disturbing about this.