Thus, it is the government of Germany in this case which is "censoring."
This is today's page 1 article in the newspaper "die tageszeitung". The article "Zensur im Cyberspace" (censorship in cyberspace) and the comment "Die Moral der Biedermänner" are available http://www.prz.tu-berlin.de/~taz until tomorrow. From the article (my translation): "The Bavarian department of public prosecution 'has left it to their discretion' to take the 'necessary steps' on their own, to avoid 'possible punishability of the management in Germany'. An advice that CompuServe has followed although there is no kind of legal obligation for it. Legally, it is still perfectly unclear if enterprises that provide access to the Internet can be held responsible in any way for the contents distributed there." From the comment by Niklaus Haublützel: "Reality cannot be outlawed, only improved, and many still hope that complete freedom of information and opinion in computer networks can contribute to that. But the company of CompuServe does not seem to be interested in that. They only want their customers' money, but not their freedom. [...] Like any censorhip, this one comes with hipocrisy. Towards their paying customers, CompuServe claims to have been forced by German prosecutors. Thus one lie creates another. That they were forced it out of the question. It is only in dictatorships that the prosecutors judge the defendants - that is why dictatorships need censors."