Whatever happened to confidentiality?

I see more and more articles appearing in the press about Big Meetings. That is, Very Important CEO is having meetings with Very Important Candidates about Very Important Jobs. The problem is that the Very Important Job is very often occupied by a Very Important Executive. Some questions: Has the Executive been told that there is a Search out there to replace him/her? Believe it or not, sometimes people meet just because they happen to know each other, or because they want to network, or because someone introduced them and they are meeting out of courtesy. There was a Page 6 article in the NY Post last week about a Venture Capitalist dude meeting with Bob McCann, the ex-head of Retail at Merrill Lynch, and Alexandra Lebenthal, the current head of Alexandra and James. The speculation was that these folks were plotting a takeover of UBS Americas, the legacy PaineWebber http://www.nypost.com/seven/07222009/gossip/pagesix/eyes_on_wall_st__powwow_180676.htm The article mentions that Bob McCann is on the “short list” to take over UBS Wealth Management. Is there really a search? I don't know. But when the best Headhunters conduct searches, (Not just me, there are other good ones!)they do not end up on Page 6, or in the Financial Times, or in FundFire. Whatever happened to confidentiality? Just because UBS has had issues, because McCann and Sally Krawcheck are available, does that mean that there's a search to replace Marten Hoekstra? Sometimes people just meet and there's not a job at stake or a firm in play. Call me naïve, call me old-fashioned, but it bothers me that “meetings” are assumed to be “interviews” and that this is news when it may or may not be part of a specific search.