New York, June 5, 2002 – After receiving an inquiry from the Children's Advertising Review Unit (CARU) of the Council of Better Business Bureaus Inc., lmntmusic.com, the official Website of Atlantic Records' recording artists LMNT, made some changes to address children's online privacy. However, it failed to make one fundamental modification and, consequently, the site falls short of compliance with CARU's Self-Regulatory Guidelines for Children's Advertising.

CARU's Guidelines call for neutral age screening on Websites that collect personally identifiable information and where there is a reasonable expectation that a significant number of children younger than 13 will be visiting. LMNT recently had the number one song, "Juliet," on Radio Disney, whose target audience is 6-14 years old. Radio Disney was promoted in the "news" area of the lmntmusic.com Website, which exhorted fans to "Request it ('Juliet') now at: Radio Disney or call 1-888-327-7018!"

Among the features offered on lmntmusic.com were an e-mail mailing list and a message board, which not only collected one's e-mail address but also enabled registrants to have their profile information such as e-mail address and hometown visible to visitors to the site. However, there was no age screening in the registration process nor was there any kind of parental notification/consent mechanism.

After CARU opened its inquiry, lmntmusic.com deleted its message board and replaced it with a link to an outside message board, which does have a neutral age-screening mechanism. Similarly, the site created a "Street Team" link, which also has a neutral age-screening process in place. However, the mailing list for the LMNT e-mail newsletter still has no such mechanism.

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.