New York, NY – October 24, 2001 - The Children's Advertising Review Unit of the Council of Better Business Bureaus (CARU) is pleased to announce that HokuStyle.com, a Website devoted to the recording artist, Hoku, has agreed to change its privacy practices to comply with CARU's Guidelines.

Among the site's features was a message board which enabled visitors under the age of 13 to post personally identifiable information such as an email address. There was no age screening of any kind nor was there any mechanism in place to obtain parental consent for children younger than 13. In addition, no privacy policy was posted.

Both the federal Children's Online Privacy Protection Act and CARU's Guidelines require a privacy policy pertaining to the collection of information from children to be posted prominently wherever such information is collected. CARU's Guidelines also state: "In Websites not specifically targeted to children where there is a reasonable expectation that children will be visiting, age-screening mechanisms should be employed to determine whether verifiable parental consent or notice and opt-out is necessitated…"

HokuStyle.com shut down its message board in response to CARU's inquiry and agreed to institute a new board with registration procedures that are consistent with CARU's Guidelines.

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.