Google Delists News Content, BBC Threatened

Last year we witnessed a huge debate which you might have heard it referred to as the “right to be forgotten” debate. It is because of the idea that any personal information lives forever on the internet.

It was later ruled at the European Court of Justice that the individuals will have the right to request the search engines to remove web pages from their search results that contain personal information.

This resulted in Google delisting a vast number of web pages from its search results, which included the BBC’s vast network of news items. It was during May when Google started accepting the removal requests. And approximately 12,000 applications were submitted on the very first day.

BBC then promised that it will publish the list of articles that were delisted by Google. And since Google sends an email before delisting a web page, that makes it easier for BBC to manage and update the list constantly.

Neil McIntosh, BBC’s managing editor says “We are doing this primarily as a contribution to public policy. We think it is important that those with an interest in the ‘right to be forgotten’ can ascertain which articles have been affected by the ruling.”

Which the list of delisted articles remains published on the BBC, it is much harder for the average users to find out that information without Google’s cooperation, which is perceived as a threat to BBC’s integrity and their online archives.