AOL Added to German Probe of Racism on Internet
America Online Inc. said Friday that it is part of a broadening probe by German prosecutors into hate material on the Internet, joining CompuServe Inc. and a European online service.
The company said it may face charges in Germany for permitting German citizens to access neo-Nazi and anti-Semitic material on the global computer network. America Online and Germany’s Bertelsmann jointly run AOL Europe.
It is the second time since December that German authorities have pressured online services to censor Internet material.
The move also comes after the U.S. Congress on Thursday approved a ban on publishing sexually explicit material on the Internet.
Last week, prosecutors served similar notice to another U.S.-based computer online service, CompuServe Inc. of Columbus, Ohio, and T-Online, a division of the German phone company.
Publishing or distributing neo-Nazi literature or literature denying that the Holocaust occurred is illegal in Germany. Violators can be charged with inciting racial hatred, but it is unclear how such laws can be enforced in the free-for-all atmosphere of cyberspace.
Prosecutors in Mannheim, Germany, are considering bringing incitement charges against the three Internet providers for allowing access to material posted on the Internet by Ernst Zuendel, a German neo-Nazi living in Toronto.
Anyone can create a site on the Internet using a server, a computer that stores images and texts and makes them available to people using America Online, CompuServe or other services that provide access to the Internet.
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 is working with the prosecutors to find a solution.
America Online spokesman Ingo Reese in Hamburg said his company is also willing to work with the prosecutors.
The company is opposed to illegal propaganda, he said, but argued that commercial online 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., began operating in Germany in December in a joint venture with Bertelsmann.
The joint venture has 40,000 subscribers in Germany; AOL has 4.5 million customers worldwide.
