Google's paid clicks are up 20 per cent on last year, according to comScore, the international web data company.

But the search engine is being sued for €49m (£38m) in past damages by Copiepresse, a company made up of several Belgian newspaper publishers, for the way it publishes aggregated news.

The problem is not Google as a search engine, but the way the news content is stored and published.

"The newspaper publishers, members of Copiepresse, give free access to their internet sites for normal use. They never had any problem with the search engines as such," said Margaret Boribon, secretary general of Copiepresse.

Google is also facing a $1bn (£500m) lawsuit from US media conglomerate Viacom over copyright infringement through YouTube.