Since agreeing to comply with the European Court of Justice’s decision that people have the right to be forgotten, Google has received about 50,000 requests for Web pages to be removed from European search results. One of the requests it has granted relates to a story written by BBC economics editor Robert Peston. But Peston doesn’t want his article to be forgotten.
The 2007 article in question, “Merrill’s mess,” discusses Merrill Lynch’s huge losses on securities backed by subprime mortgages. Today it reads as a minor but prescient piece of historical color, foreshadowing major losses by financial institutions and a credit crunch creating difficulties for weaker borrowers.