Personal ads in those days did not usually have real names or addresses in them, regardless of sexual orientation. Some had personal phone numbers, but in those days you could also pay a few bucks more and rent a voicemail number just to put in the ad, or a "mailbox" for written correspondence. Classified ad software in those days had all kinds of features for supporting pseudo-anonymity and handling the pricing correctly.

So yes of course the ads were public, you could pick up a free copy of the newspaper at any gay bar on Toronto's Church Street. But the details about the customers placing ads were extremely sensitive.

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Oh man, the stories I heard... Many extremely sad to me, when I think about why people felt the need to be closeted and so on.

Someone might give out their phone number and a fake name, but the back end the software might need to know their real name and address for billing purposes.