Britain's Supreme Court on Thursday upheld an injunction preventing the English press from naming a celebrity who was involved in a much publicized extra-marital threesome.

The ruling means media in England and Wales remain banned from naming the people involved, even though their names have been widely reported on the Internet since a US magazine published the full story on April 6.

In a four-to-one majority ruling, the Supreme Court held that the story was not in the public interest and publication of the names would be a serious breach of privacy. The court said that even though the story was easily accessible on the Internet and social media, for it to be splashed all over the English papers would lead to "potentially more enduring invasions" of privacy.

The ruling will anger London-based tabloid newspapers which had argued the injunction was absurd when the details were easily available on the Internet. The case has stirred a wider debate in Britain about whether injunctions, court orders banning publication of private information, serve any purpose in the Internet age.

The person at the heart of the story is in the entertainment industry and married to a person in the same business. The couple has two children, who would also be at risk of an invasion of their privacy, the court said. The couple testified to the lower court that originally granted the injunction that theirs was an open relationship in which extra-marital flings were acceptable and did not call into question their commitment to each other and their children.

"There is no public interest [however much it may be of interest to some members of the public] in publishing kiss-and-tell stories or criticisms of private sexual conduct, simply because the persons involved are well-known," said Supreme Court judge Lord Mance, reading a summary of the ruling.