Google is being sued by a UK businessman who claims the search engine directed people to 'deeply offensive and commercially damaging' material about his comapnies on the internet.

The case, brought by Brian Retkin, 48, is the first of its kind in this country that seeks to make search engines responsible for the content of the internet.

'There comes a point when someone must take responsibility for this material. These allegations were posted anonymously so there is no way of suing the author,' said Retkin.

'Where it has appeared on internet discussion forums we have asked them to remove it but it keeps popping up again at other internet addresses. The only solution is for Google to remove it and give an undertaking they will remove it permanently.'

The material in question wrongly accuses Retkin of being fraudulent.

Google claims it has blacklisted' the offending links and removed the material, but Retkin claims it then reappears on other web addresses.

If the action was successful it could potentially mean Google being held liable for the content of 11.5 billion web pages.