New York, NY – May 17, 2001 – The Children’s Advertising Review Unit (CARU) of the Council of Better Business Bureaus, Inc. is pleased to announce that LVMH’s Hard Candy, Inc. has made modifications to its Website, www.hardcandy.com, in order to bring the Website into compliance with CARU’s Guidelines for Interactive Electronic Media (the Guidelines).

The Hard Candy Website is an e-commerce Website that offers cosmetics with a youthful flair. In March 2001, after having reviewed the Hard Candy Website for compliance with its Guidelines and the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), CARU discovered several concerns with the Hard Candy Website, specifically lack of effective age-screening along with disclosure of why information was being collected.

Because Hard Candy’s marketing efforts are not directed at children under 13, Hard Candy will implement an effective age screening procedure in conjunction with a tracking mechanism at its registration area. To further address CARU’s concerns Hard Candy will revise its Privacy Policy to include offline contact information and to notify users that Hard Candy does not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from children under the age of 13. CARU was especially pleased that Hard Candy committed to go above and beyond the requirements of its Guidelines by committing to delete the records for any registrant who identified herself as being under the age of 13 over the site’s history.

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. Members of the press who wish to see a copy of the decision now should e-mail CARU.