German prosecutors appear to be using the *threat* of charges to force AOL and CompuServe to block access to web sites. I suspect they'd rather not actually file formal charges... This is escalation. Faced with criminal charges for "inciting racial hatred" or with enraged customers if they block access to web servers in the U.S., what will AOL do? Try to block by URL? -Declan ----------------------------------------------------------------------- February 2, 1996 BERLIN (AP) -- Prosecutors trying to keep Germans from reading neo-Nazi propaganda on the Internet have notified America Online Inc. that it may be charged with inciting racial hatred. Last week, prosecutors served similar notice to another U.S.-based computer on-line service, CompuServe Inc. of Columbus, Ohio, and T-Online, a division of the German phone company. [...publishing neo-Nazi lit is illegal...] Prosecutors in Mannheim are considering bringing incitement charges against the three Internet providers in Germany for allowing access to material posted on the Internet by Ernst Zuendel, a German neo-Nazi living in Toronto. [...easy to create a web site...] T-Online, Germany's largest Internet access provider, responded to the prosecutors' investigations by blocking its 1 million subscribers from gaining access to the computer in California where Zuendel had posted his tracts. Computer users accused T-Online of overreacting because the block also prevented them from reaching more than 1,500 other sites on that part of the network. CompuServe, with 4 million subscribers worldwide, including 220,000 in Germany, has not blocked the California server but said it was working with the prosecutors to find a solution. America Online spokesman Ingo Reese in Hamburg said his company also was happy to work with the prosecutors. The company is ``totally opposed'' to illegal propaganda, he said, but argued that commercial on-line companies have as much control over materials posted on the Internet as telephone companies have over their customers' conversations. America Online, based in Vienna, Va., only began operating in Germany in December in a joint venture with a German company, Bertelsmann AG. The joint venture has 40,000 subscribers in Germany; America Online has 4.5 million customers worldwide. [...]