Max Mosley sues Google to block 'orgy' vid searches

Max Mosley is suing Google after it snubbed requests from the ex-Formula One boss to pull content about his sex life from the company's search engine results.

He told the Leveson inquiry into press standards yesterday that he was in the process of taking legal action against Google in France and Germany.

The former FIA president has already spent over £500,000 on legal action forcing websites to stop streaming video clips featuring him - originally published by the now-defunct News of the World, which he successfully sued for invasion of privacy.

The video in question - commissioned by the NotW - was taken by a prostitute who was at an alleged "party" with Mosley and four other women.

Mosley added that he was also considering suing Google in California over the "difficulties" of the company's "automatic search machines".

"Having obtained judgment in England and Wales, I instructed my lawyers to take steps to remove the images and video from the internet where possible," he told the inquiry in a written statement accompanying his testimony.

"I understand that this was a labour intensive exercise and that my lawyers have removed links from over 250 websites in the UK alone. My lawyers have instructed several different firms of lawyers in over 20 different jurisdictions to remove the images and video originally published by NotW from several hundred more websites... 193 in Germany."

Mosley complained that the "exercise was made all the more difficult by the intransigent position taken by Google as to their ability to remove images and video from their search results".

Google's inability to "police the internet" meant Mosley would always be faced with people who have seen the material online, he griped.

"In effect the information I wished to keep private and which the NotW was held to have published unlawfully will forever be known and accessible to the world at large," he said.

"Anywhere in the world when I meet someone for the first time, I do so in the knowledge that they will almost certainly have put my name in a search engine and seen the material. Before the internet, breach of privacy was usually a single publication. Today, the information is republished on a daily basis."

At present, Google only censors material following a court order. The company said in a statement that its "search results reflect the information available on billions of web pages on the internet".

It added: "We don't, and can't, control what others post online, but when we're told that a specific page is illegal under a court order, then we move quickly to remove it from our search results." ®