New York, NY - October 25, 2000 - The Children’s Advertising Review Unit (CARU) of the Council of Better Business Bureaus, Inc. (CBBB) has concluded its second investigation of Lisa Frank, Inc. finding serious violations of CARU’s Guidelines for Interactive Electronic Media and the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). Lisa Frank is a Website which offers chat, message boards, e-commerce, sweepstakes and a club to a primarily teen/ tween girl audience. CARU’s Interactive Guidelines apply to, “online activities which are intentionally targeted to children under 13, or where the Website knows the visitor is a child.” The self-regulatory organization performed its first investigation of the Lisa Frank Website in September of 1998 through its routine patrolling of the Internet.

According to both the Interactive Guidelines and COPPA, Websites must effectively screen for age and obtain verifiable parental consent before permitting those under 13 to post or disclose personally identifiable information. Lisa Frank took some steps to address CARU’s concerns, but in light of its refusal to implement effective age-screening and verifiable parental consent, CARU is referring the matter to the Federal Trade Commission.

The CARU’s inquiry was conducted under NAD/NARB/CARU Procedures for Voluntary Self-Regulation of National Advertising and resolved within 60 business days. Details of the inquiry, CARU’s decision and the advertiser’s response will be included in the next NAD Case Report.