New York, NY June 11, 2001 The Children's Advertising Review Unit (CARU) of the Council of Better Business Bureaus, Inc. (CBBB) is pleased to announce that Universal Music Group (UMG) has modified the eminem.com Website, the official Website of the rap star Eminem, in order to protect the safety and privacy of children who visit 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 children under age 13 could easily participate in the interactive features on the site, without prior parental permission. Children under the age of 13 could talk with visitors of any age in the Eminem.com chat room and on message boards and the site could collect personally identifiable information (such as first and last name, street address, city and state, zip code, gender, marital status, income, education level, which included an option of "student K-12,") from such children at registration for free email accounts and for message boards.

UMG worked cooperatively with CARU to modify the eminem.com site so that children would be screened out of these interactive features, while still being allowed to view non-interactive areas of interests to fans of Eminem. CARU commends UMG's decision to institute effective age-screening and to track under-age visitors.

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.