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    Max Mosley, the former president of Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA), wants Google to help him scrub the Internet.

    By Sam Schechner

    Max Mosley, a former head of the Formula One racing circuit, is now trying to redraw the lines of what counts as private on the Internet.

    Mosley gained international notoriety five years ago after the defunct tabloid News of the World published an account of a sadomasochistic sex party he had with five women, calling it a “sick Nazi orgy.” (News of the World was owned by News Corp, which owns The Wall Street Journal.)

    Mr. Mosley, who admits the party, but strongly denied the Nazi theme, has since won judgments in the UK and France that the images are a violation of personal privacy.

    Now he is trying to create a new precedent, taking his case to court in both France and Germany, in an effort to get Google to scrub its search results of any links to images of the sexual escapade.

    Mr. Mosley spoke with the Wall Street Journal by phone after his hearing Wednesday in Paris.

    WSJ: What are you trying to accomplish with these cases?

    Mosley: In essence, there are a set of pictures, I think about nine or ten pictures, which the English high court ruled illegal back in 2008. And these keep cropping up on the net. We’re saying to Google that you shouldn’t show these pictures on your search. We’re saying no thumbnails, no links, no nothing.

    WSJ: But why?

    They’re a breach of privacy. They’re pictures of sexual activity which I say is private and indeed the high court said is private, and therefore shouldn’t be published.

    WSJ: Google and Internet advocates say your case could set a dangerous precedent of censorship on the net, blocking access to legitimate content, like news articles.

    Mr. Mosley: They say, ‘We don’t want to censor the net,’ and, ‘We don’t want to supervise the net.’ I say we’re not asking you to do that. We’re asking you to censor or supervise what you publish yourself.

    These are specific pictures. They’re all there in the pleadings, the exact pictures. And as it’s illegal to show these pictures, you shouldn’t show them. And they acknowledge this in the sense that if you find one being shown, they will take it down. I’m saying because you have the technology to stop them appearing in the first place, you should.

    WSJ: Why are you suing in France and Germany specifically?

    Mr. Mosley: Well, because we’ve done quite a bit in England and we wanted to sort of make it more European. We thought if we just went in England, everybody would say, that’s just England. France and Germany, if we can win there, then it starts to have a real effect throughout the EU.

    WSJ: If you want this stuff off the Web, isn’t suing counterproductive? Aren’t you just going to create more links and interest?

    Mr. Mosley: Absolutely. If you bring a case like this, a lot of people will then will look for whatever it is you’re suing about. But the other side of that is, anybody who knows me– if I meet somebody new, they will do a search, and they’ll find this stuff. So everybody that comes into my orbit, looks at it anyway. The only bad effect of the case is that it will also encourage people who are not in my orbit to look. But that’s the price you pay. It seems to me as a matter of principle they shouldn’t be allowed to just do this, and that’s why I’m asking the court to stop them.