Max Mosley is suing Google in France and Germany in an attempt to force the internet giant to monitor and censor search results about his alleged sado-masochistic orgy.
The former Formula One boss revealed he is taking legal action against Google during his testimony before the Leveson inquiry at London's Royal Courts of Justice on Thursday.
Mosley is battling to remove from the internet false and libellous references to an alleged "Nazi-themed" orgy and the controversial News of the World video. He told the inquiry that he has taken legal action in 22 countries and ordered the removal of material from 193 websites in Germany.
"The fundamental thing is that Google could stop this appearing but they don't or won't as a matter of principle," he told the inquiry. "The really dangerous things are the search engines."
It is understood that Google has removed hundreds of references to the defamatory claims after requests from Mosley's solicitors.
However, Mosley is attempting to force Google to proactively monitor its search results so that the material never appears. Presently, Google only removes specific web links from its search results when they are ruled unlawful by a court and reported to the company.
The former motorsport boss said he is considering fresh legal action against Google in California, where the company is based, if it does not censor the results.
A Google spokesman said: "Google's search results reflect the information available on billions of web pages on the internet. 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."
Free speech campaigners were last night quick to criticise Mosley, claiming that forcing search engines to proactively remove content would open the door to a new form of online censorship.
"Search engines are not publishers and cannot be held responsible for everything on the web," said Padraig Reidy, the news editor of pressure group Index on Censorship. "If they are held responsible, it would fundamentally alter the web from the free space that has changed the way we live, ultimately rendering the web unsearchable as content is not indexed for fear of complaint."
In his written witness statement, Mosley likened the internet to "a sort of Wild West with its own rules which the courts cannot touch".
"This is a fallacy," he said. "The internet and those that use it are clearly subject to the law like everyone else. It may sometimes be difficult to enforce the law because of the international nature of the internet. But that is a separate question."
