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The Worcester News has been the victim of one of the more bizarre examples of the European court's so-called "right to be forgotten" ruling.
The paper was told by Google that it was removing from its search archive an article in praise of a young artist.
Yes, you read that correctly. A positive story published five years ago about Dan Roach, who was then on the verge of gaining a degree in fine art, had to be taken down.
Although Google does not say who complained, the paper's editor, Peter John, is confident that Roach himself made the request because he had previously approached the News to remove the piece from its website.
Evidently, Roach is now a professional artist and, in the belief that he is now a much better painter than he was in 2009, he thinks the painting shown in the picture accompanying the article might damage his artistic reputation.
John calls the take-down "the most absurd and silly piece of censorship" since Google was required to enact the court's decision.
He says: "An artist wanting to remove part of his back catalogue did not strike us as the sort of principle that the European court of justice had in mind when it came up with the right to be forgotten ruling.
"Nor did we think that artists could argue that their previous work was irrelevant. Would Google remove early Hirsts or Monets on request?
"We are trying to appeal, but have not yet been able to find out if Google have an appeals procedure."
Meanwhile, as one might expect, he has highlighted Google's move in an article in his newspaper, which will almost certainly ensure more people see Roach's original painting than would otherwise have been the case.
Source: Worcester News
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