Google to be criticised by MPs over links to controversial content

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/mar/21/google-mps-controversial-content

Version 0 of 1.

Google is expected to come in for heavy criticism from a parliamentary committee set up by David Cameron, with MPs and peers unhappy with what they say is the search engine's tardy response to removing links to controversial content that breaches privacy.

The cross-party committee of MPs and peers is due to report next week, and it is understood that the harshest language in the final document is reserved for Google, whose executives came under attack in an at times ill-tempered public session in January.

As an example, parliamentarians believe Google could have done more to remove links to the Max Mosley orgy video, filmed covertly by the News of the World, and widely disseminated around the internet following its initial publication in 2008.

This is expected to underpin the basis of explicit criticism of Google, which committee members believe could do far more to help enforce court orders restraining publication or requiring the deletion of previously public material as a result of a privacy or other legal action.

The prime minister set up the privacy and injunctions committee in the wake of the Ryan Giggs superinjunction furore last year, which saw thousands of Twitter and internet users flout a court-ordered ban on naming the footballer, who had had an alleged affair with model Imogen Thomas. At the heart of the committee's concern was to see if more could be done to enforce privacy rulings online.

Last December, Mosley himself told the committee that video taken from the News of the World site could still be found on Google, and said search engines should be obliged to take down news items and images that were found to be in breach of privacy promptly.

Mosley won a privacy action against the News of the World in 2008 after the Sunday tabloid had falsely accused him of taking part in a "sick Nazi orgy" – and has since been taking legal action to have copies of the film taken down wherever they appear.

Complaints about Google's handling of the Mosley material formed part of the questioning of company executives, David-John Collins, a public affairs direction, and Daphne Keller, its legal director and associate general counsel, at the end of January.

Keller said eliminating copies of offending material was not easy. "We don't have a mechanism that can find duplicates of pictures or duplicates of text and make them disappear from our web search," she said. "And as a policy matter I don't think that would be a good idea."

However, members of all parties were unimpressed, with former Conservative party chairman Lord Mawhinney describing the Google duo as "extremely hard to pin down" and Labour MP Ben Bradshaw saying the executives' answers were "totally unconvincing".

The 26-member committee report is due on Tuesday, although the body met on Monday of last week to sign off on its recommendations in a stormy three-and-a-half-hour session in which much of the debate focused on press regulation. Members eventually concluded that a reconstituted Press Complaints Commission should be subject to oversight by the broadcasting watchdog Ofcom if newspapers cannot agree a credible package of reforms.

• To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".

• To get the latest media news to your desktop or mobile, follow MediaGuardian on Twitter and Facebook