New York, NY - November 5, 2002 The Children's Advertising Review Unit (CARU) of the Council of Better Business Bureaus Inc. announced that avril-lavigne.com, operated by Nettwerk Productions, has made changes to its Website to come into compliance with CARU's Self-Regulatory Guidelines for Children's Advertising (the Guidelines) and the federal Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). avril-lavigne.com is the official Website for Avril Lavigne, the 17-year-old recording artist who recently had one of the leading hit songs on the Radio Disney charts.

The site had been running an e-mail newsletter sign-up without any age-screening process, which the Guidelines require for sites where there is a reasonable expectation that a significant number of children under the age of 13 will be visiting. The Website had also been operating, without neutral age-screening, a registration process for "The Official AVRIL eTeam" which collected personally identifiable information. Joining the eTeam would enable children to participate in various activities including chat rooms. Finally, there was no privacy policy on the site, which is required under COPPA if personal information is collected from children under 13 years old.

Upon notice from CARU, avril-lavigne.com deleted the links to these two registration programs. The site recently restored the sign-up pages for the "AVRIL eTeam" and the e-mail newsletter, but only after a neutral age-screening process had been instituted, including a tracking mechanism that prevents pre-teens from circumventing the process.

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.