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The company which runs the website, Perfect 10, has previously filed a similar suit against Google. Under US law up to $150,000 per image could be paid as compensation for copyright infringement.

Amazon has yet to comment.

The company alleges that Google and A9 have reduced its revenues by giving surfers an free look at its explicit images, for which it charges $25.50 per month on its site.

It has long been suggested that search engines skate on thin ice when it comes to copyright, particularly as by caching content from websites they are automatically creating an unauthorised copy, in exactly the same way that a file sharer is in breach of copyright in music files. If Perfect 10 wins, then the future of search engines, and particularly image searches, will be thrown into question.