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We forget NOTHING, the Beeb thunders at Europe

Here are the pages dropped into Google's 'memory hole'

The BBC has decided that the EU's controversial “right to be forgotten” diktat won't succeed in making its news stories vanish from Google.

To get around Google's Euro memory hole, which has resulted in the Chocolate Factory getting 270,000 requests to drop search search links, the UK national broadcaster has decided to list any links that Google removes from its search engine.

Explaining the decision here, managing editor Neil McIntosh said the Beeb is one of the publishers affected and that Google “continues to delist pages from BBC Online.”

“The BBC has decided to make clear to licence fee payers which pages have been removed from Google's search results by publishing this list of links,” McIntosh wrote.

As well as a matter of public policy and a contribution to the “right to be forgotten” debate, he notes, “We also think the integrity of the BBC's online archive is important and, although the pages concerned remain published on BBC Online, removal from Google searches makes parts of that archive harder to find.”

Treating links as anything other than “part of a permanently permanently accessible archive” risks “reducing transparency and damaging trust”, he added.

So far, more than 180 BBC links have been delisted by Google.

The BBC's decision comes shortly after France took a hard line on the "right to be forgotten", demanding that Google remove links within two weeks or face fines. ®

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