I think both approachs ("searcher notified" and "searchee notified") have failure modes in stalking/harassment cases. Consider the following 2 scenarios, in both of which Bob is stalking Alice across services.
Bob just got an account on Dreamwidth and wants to know whether (and under what name) Alice is there too. Here, Bob wants the searcher (himself) to be notified, not the searchee. Conversely, Alice (if she has a Dreamwidth account) wants the serchee (her) to be notified. Here, "notify searchee" is the right thing, qnd "notify searcher" could have serious consequences.
But now, Dave replied to a comment Alice left elsewhere, and Alice, who doesn't know Dave but suspects he might be Bob under an alias, decides to search for Bob's known email addresses to see if Dave pops up as a match. But obviously, Alice wants the match notifications for herself as the searcher, and Dave (if he's really Bob) wants them for himself as the searchee. There, the safe solution is reversed from the previous scenario, and notifying the searchee is bad.
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Bob just got an account on Dreamwidth and wants to know whether (and under what name) Alice is there too. Here, Bob wants the searcher (himself) to be notified, not the searchee. Conversely, Alice (if she has a Dreamwidth account) wants the serchee (her) to be notified. Here, "notify searchee" is the right thing, qnd "notify searcher" could have serious consequences.
But now, Dave replied to a comment Alice left elsewhere, and Alice, who doesn't know Dave but suspects he might be Bob under an alias, decides to search for Bob's known email addresses to see if Dave pops up as a match. But obviously, Alice wants the match notifications for herself as the searcher, and Dave (if he's really Bob) wants them for himself as the searchee. There, the safe solution is reversed from the previous scenario, and notifying the searchee is bad.