COMPUSERVE TO LEAVE INTERNET CENSORSHIP TO INDIVIDUAL USER.

Byline: Peter H. Lewis The New York Times

Citing a desire to leave Internet censorship to individual tastes rather than government decree, the on-line company Compuserve Inc. said Tuesday that it would restore worldwide access to most of the 200 sex-related computer databases it had blocked recently under pressure from German prosecutors.

Instead of barring all of its 4.3 million subscribers from access to the controversial sites, Compuserve said it would provide subscribers with software that could be employed to selectively block any material the user finds offensive.

While not foolproof, such filtering software can give people a large measure of control over what material they or their children can receive through their computer modems.

Compuserve said, however, that it was maintaining a ban on five of the computer sites suspected by German, U.S. and other law enforcement officials of carrying child pornography.

Although Compuserve described its action as a pragmatic solution to its problems in Germany and said it had no political overtones back home, the announcement comes as a number of governments - including the United States - have moved to restrict the availability of sexually explicit or other types of potentially offensive material over computer networks.

Last week, President Clinton signed a bill into law making it a crime to make indecent material available to children over computer networks. The new federal law, the Communications Decency Act, already has been challenged by civil liberties groups who argue that it is an overly broad and unconstitutional infringement of free speech.

Compuserve will adopt software similar to parental-control technology already offered by two other leading on-line companies, America Online and Prodigy Services.

Opponents of the Communications Decency Act assert that such technology, offered without charge, is a better way to protect the young and the sensitive, because it lets individual choice - not government strictures - determine the content of information flowing into and out of personal computers.

The Justice Department has agreed not to prosecute anyone under the new law at least until Thursday, when a federal judge in Philadelphia is expected to rule on whether to grant a temporary restraining order requested by the American Civil Liberties Union and other parties to the suit.

Another major legal challenge may come as soon as next week. A coalition of commercial on-line services, telecommunications companies, librarians and civil liberties groups is considering filing its own federal suit, seeking less restrictive means to protect minors than the broad ban called for in the new law. Compuserve has been asked to join that group.

"The introduction of parental controls lets us put the power to control and restrict content access where it belongs, with the individual user," said Robert J. Massey, the president and chief executive of Compuserve, which is based in Columbus, Ohio.

Bill Burrington, assistant general counsel for America Online, the world's largest consumer on-line service, said, "Is it going to be individual choice, or the government mandating what people can see?"

The computer sites to which Compuserve had temporarily blocked access are part of Usenet, and Internet collection of more than 16,000 computer bulletin boards where messages, images, audio and video files can be posted for public consumption.