Why has Google cast me into oblivion?
I like that they told the author that his article would no longer be viewable.If that's the case, and the 'removal' is not secret, then they could (should?) totally make available a separate database of articles that people have asked to be removed.Basically, the original article may be old (or theoretically irrelevant) but the fact that someone asked for it to be removed is very new and not at all irrelevant.  It would be awesome to see this as the Streisand effect writ large - everything that people want to see buried actually gets a new surge of attention.