>Because there's two types of storing passwords in plain text. There's the "your password is stored in plaintext in the database" way which everyone agrees is 10 different kinds of stupid, and then there's the "we accidentally logged the body of all requests that went through this system, and it turns out login requests came through here" kind.
Basically the conscious decision to store passwords in plain text is worse than unintentionally doing so in logs. One is purposeful, one is not. Yes it's bad, but it's not as bad as if it was done on purpose. And generally, this how most laws are enforced or implemented.
I think people are drawing a distinction where one doesn't really exist.
This whole conversation is about how it likely was not done on purpose, and that it was the result of logging HTTP requests and responses.
If they wrote logger.info(password), yea I'd say that's as outrageous.
Those things are in no way exclusive. Storing passwords in plaintext is awful practise. Including the contents of form submissions in logging is a similarly awful practise. I really don't see what the difference is.