Zee Media Bureau/Salome Phelamei
London: Former Formula One boss, Max Mosley, has launched a legal action against Google in the UK for continuing to publish images of him at a sex party.
In the High Court proceedings, Mosley accused the Internet search engine giant of breaching the Data protection Act and misusing private information.
The former F1 boss wants Google to block pictures of him first published in the now-defunct tabloid News of the World.
Mosley said: “As the gateway to the internet, Google makes enormous profits and has great influence, so I have not taken this action lightly. But Google should operate within the law rather than according to rules it makes itself. It cannot be allowed to ignore judgements in our courts.”
The former president of the Federation Internationale de l`Automobile, the motorsport governing body, had won £60,000 damages in 2008 from News of the World for wrongly accusing him of taking part in a “sick Nazi orgy”
Mosley said the role-play sessions with five prostitutes at a rented Chelsea basement was harmless, consensual and private and had no Nazi overtones.
Mosley`s lawyers said the new proceedings against Google UK and parent firm Google Inc, follow “extensive attempts to persuade Google to resolve the matter outside the courts”.
“We have worked with Mr Mosley to address his concerns and taken down hundreds of URLs about which he has notified us,” a Google spokesman said.
The fresh legal action comes after a European court of justice decision earlier in May which ruled that Google must amend some search results at the request of ordinary people when they show links to outdated, irrelevant information, in an important test of the so-called “right to be forgotten.”
However, Mr Mosley`s lawyers said that the new High Court claim was not directly linked to the “right to be forgotten”.
Mosley has already won similar cases against Google in France and Germany.
