New York, NY - October 18, 2000 - The Children's Advertising Review Unit (CARU) of the Council of Better Business Bureaus, Inc. (CBBB) has concluded its investigation of WiredReality Entertainment finding serious violations of CARU's Guidelines for Interactive Electronic Media and the federal Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). WiredReality, which is headquartered in Canada, is a network provider of Websites that offer chat rooms and message boards to a primarily teen/tween audience. CARU's Interactive Guidelines apply to, "online activities which are intentionally targeted to children under 13 years of age, or where the Website knows the visitor is a child."

According to both the Interactive Guidelines and COPPA, Websites that offer preteen and teen chat and message boards must effectively screen for age and require verifiable parental consent before permitting those under 13 to post personally identifiable information. Although WiredReality took some cosmetic steps to address CARU's concerns, in light of its refusal to implement effective age-screening and verifiable parental consent, CARU is referring the matter to the Federal Trade Commission.

CARU's inquiry was conducted under the NAD/NARB/CARU Procedures for Voluntary Self-Regulation of National Advertising. Details of this inquiry and CARU's decision will be included in the next NAD Case Report. Members of the press who wish to see a copy of the decision now should email CARU at elascoutx@caru.bbb.org.