None of that information is actually private though. Your home address and personal phone number are likely in the public record for any number of reasons, such as ownership records or court filings. Or maybe a Facebook post from 2009 that your mom made. Unless you're one of the 0.00001% of people who do things like rotate your phone number and address annually, it's out there somewhere.

But public vs private is a spectrum, not a binary true/false. My phone number is public because I get sales calls from various companies to it. It's annoying, but bearable. But there's a big gap between that and the New York Times putting my name, number and picture on the front page.

So your home address and phone number aren't private. But they're also not readily accessible unless someone is really dedicated to finding them, so they're not quite public either.

There are plenty of countries where all that is public information, back in the day there even used to be a phone book with .. name, phone number, and address. And many countries have this now in digital form.

The missing part is the action part.

An email (or phone number, or address) is an identifier. Asking whether this identifier is public or private misses the important thing, which is the action that can be paird with the identifier.

So therefore, there's no universal answer to whether the identifier should be public or private. It's a case by case basis, when paired with an action.

For example, i don't want a shop to see me buying condoms, so shops shouldn't get my email address (or phone number).

Interestingly, public U.S. state property records will just disclose where you live whether you like it or not. With as little as your name, a home address is trivial to find.

We used to get these big books delivered to our doorsteps that had your name, your address and your personal phone number. You could pay to opt out.

Phonebooks were a thing not so long ago...