Google is being sued in the US by a politician who believes that the company is profiting from child pornography.

Jeffrey Toback, a Democratic Party member of the Nassau County Legislature, has filed a 16-page complaint claiming that Google takes money for paid links which contain child pornography.

"When it comes to the protection and well being of our nation's innocent children, [Google] refuses to spend a dime's worth of resources to block child pornography from reaching children or to filter out search terms such as 'child pornography' or 'kiddie porn' or the content to which such terms lead," the complaint said.

A Google spokesman pointed out that Google has the SafeSearch function which blocks any adult material from its website, and that where child pornography is found the site concerned is permanently excluded from Google searches and local law enforcement agencies notified.

Toback has previously sponsored a bill to raise the age at which people can buy cigarettes to 19, and to limit children's access to tanning salons.

He is not seeking money from Google but wants the company to prohibit " advertising relating to websites that display, market or otherwise provide illegal access to pornography".