Yes, particularly when considering they stopped accepting new links six years ago. It's a read-only data set and the total storage backing it is probably trivial by Google standards.
But they actually backtracked and said they'll keep the "active" links working.
Why even spend the effort to remove the "inactive" links? They must feel they represent some sort of liability?
Or would it have been too embarrassing to just cancel the whole turn-down plan?
I'm not sure if this is the definition of "active" the have used, but:
<quote> Over time, these existing URLs saw less and less traffic as the years went on - in fact more than 99% of them had no activity in the last month.</quote>
I'm sure it's correct that the wast majority of links would never be used again, but to gauge which links this is I'd say you should measure at LEAST a year.
But they actually backtracked and said they'll keep the "active" links working.
Why even spend the effort to remove the "inactive" links? They must feel they represent some sort of liability?
Or would it have been too embarrassing to just cancel the whole turn-down plan?