Ann Summers has accused Google of erasing it from search results because of the tech giant’s pornography filters.
The adult retailer said Google was “distorting” the market for lingerie and sex toys by effectively blacklisting the website with its SafeSearch feature.
It said rivals such as Amazon and Marks & Spencer were not subject to the same restrictions despite selling similar products.
Ann Summers has complained to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), which is investigating Google’s grip on the search engine market.
Google introduced SafeSearch in 2009. The feature eliminates adult websites from search results as well as blurring explicit photos in image results.
While the feature is optional, many internet providers now turn it on by default.
Ann Summers said that its website was hidden from search results when the feature was turned on – even when customers were directly looking for the company’s products.
“This is having a distorting effect on the market,” it wrote in a CMA submission.
“For users with SafeSearch on, including those who have not explicitly chosen this feature, they cannot find us via Google Search, the biggest search engine.”
It said shoppers were “directed to our competitors instead”, showing examples of M&S’s website leading results for “sexy lingerie” when SafeSearch was activated.
“Our lingerie product offering is similar to our competitors, but we are penalised where they are not,” Ann Summers said.
The company said it was penalised against rivals even when people searched for its own products.
Searching for “Ann Summers sex toys” would blur out results from its websites while showing the same product sold at Boots or Amazon.
“We are not visible because of our classification; however, Amazon can appear, despite having a range of over 10,000 sex toys,” it said.
“Google holds a dominant position in web search, serving as a crucial gateway between consumers and businesses. However, Google inconsistently applies its policies.”
Last month, Ann Summers reported an 11pc fall in annual sales to £93m, blaming in part the Google restrictions.
The company launched a separate website, Knickerbox, last year in part to circumvent the restrictions.
It has said that Google’s SafeSearch means it has lost out on more than 3m website visits.
The CMA launched an investigation into Google last month over concerns about the dominance of its search engine and whether it is unfairly harvesting information from news websites.
The review could result in Google being classed as having “strategic market status”, a designation that means the regulator can impose strict requirements on the company.
