New York, NY – November 28, 2001 – The Children's Advertising Review Unit (CARU) of the Council of Better Business Bureaus, Inc. (CBBB) is pleased to announce that About.com, Inc. (About), has modified its Website to protect the safety and privacy of children who visit the site. About.com is a search engine capable of searching the site and the World Wide Web. It also provides a network of topic-specific destination sites with content provided by the Website and interactive features such as chat, forums and free email. When CARU first evaluated the site it offered such areas as "Kids" "Teens" and "Homework Help" and its privacy policy acknowledged that children under age 13 can use the site.

CARU, which monitors Websites for compliance with CARU's Self-Regulatory Guidelines for Children's Advertising (the Guidelines) as well with the federal Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), had found that before the changes were made, children under age 13 could participate in the interactive features on the site, including chat, without prior parental consent, because of a "guest" feature that did not screen for age and because of ineffective age screening. Further, CARU found that that the parental consent form did not adequately inform parents of the personally identifiable information (PII) that the site could collect, or the PII that children could share with other users of the site's interactive features.

About worked cooperatively with CARU to modify its site so that visitors are effectively screened for age and those under age 13 are required to obtain parental permission prior to disclosing any personal information to either the operator or other online visitors. The "guest" feature was removed, and a tracking mechanism was instituted to prevent underage users from pressing the back button and immediately reregistering as an older child, thus circumventing the requirement for parental consent. In addition, the operator revised its parental consent form to provide all necessary information to parents. CARU commends About's decision to make all these changes.

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

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The National Advertising Review Council (NARC) was formed in 1971 by the Association of National Advertisers, Inc. (ANA), the American Association of Advertising Agencies, Inc. (AAAA), the American Advertising Federation, Inc. (AAF), and the Council of Better Business Bureaus, Inc. (CBBB). Its purpose is to foster truth and accuracy in national advertising through voluntary self-regulation. NARC is the body that establishes the policies and procedures for the CBBB's National Advertising Division (NAD), The Children's Advertising Review Unit (CARU), and the National Advertising Review Board (NARB).

NAD and CARU are the investigative arms of the advertising industry's voluntary self-regulation program. Their casework results from competitive challenges from other advertisers, and also from self-monitoring traditional and new media, including the Internet. The National Advertising Review Board (NARB), the appeals body, is a peer group from which ad-hoc panels are selected to adjudicate those cases that are not resolved at the NAD/CARU level. This unique, self-regulatory system is funded entirely by the business community; CARU is financed by the children's advertising industry, while NAD/NARB's sole source of funding is derived from membership fees paid to the Council of Better Business Bureaus.