Google Ordered To Block Images Of Formula 1 Chief's S&M Orgy

A French court has ordered Google to remove search results showing images of Max Mosley, the former president of Formula 1 racing, at an S&M orgy with a bunch of prostitutes, according to the New York Times. The images violate Mosely's privacy under French law, the court found.

Google has said it will appeal. In fact, the search engine has already removed hundreds of links to nine images of Mosely being tied up and whipped.

A brief check by Business Insider this morning showed that Google still returns plenty of results for "Max Mosely orgy." (Don't try that at work, obviously.)

The photos came from the defunct London tabloid The News of the World, which was successfully sued for breach of privacy by the 73-year-old. Techdirt describes the legal action this way:

NotW described the photos as a "Nazi orgy," which Mosley was extra-sensitive to, given that his father, Oswald Mosley, had been the head of the UK Fascist party, and a friend of Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels (who both attended Oswald's wedding to Max's mother). Mosley sued on a variety of claims and won narrowly over the "Nazi" claim. Basically, while the images are apparently accurate, they were supposed to represent a generic German prison, rather than a Nazi prison. The court also ruled that the release of the pictures violated his privacy.

There are a couple of factors at play here.

First, European courts and laws have taken a much more strict line on an individual's right to privacy as it relates to the internet. Google is also being sued in Spain by a man who wants to search results removed that link to a report from years ago that a property he owned was sold at auction because he had not paid his social security contributions.

Second, there is Mosely's belief - and he may be alone in this belief - that if Google removes its image search results then no one will be able to find them. The ruling does not cover the images themselves, which are now hosted on dozens of independent websites. All of those sites can be found through Bing or Yahoo, of course.