New York, October 8, 2002---The Children's Advertising Review Unit (CARU) of the Council of Better Business Bureaus Inc. is pleased to announce that Digital Demographics Inc. has agreed to modify information collection practices on its online service, recommendit.com (Recommend-It). Recommend-It is a promotional service that features sweepstakes.

CARU first observed Recommend-It on a child-directed site. The service was collecting personally identifiable information from children younger than 13 without notifying parents and its privacy policy contained no information with respect to the collection and disclosure of children's personal information, as required by the federal Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).

Recommend-It was removed from the child-directed site. Digital Demographics also agreed to implement several measures including restricting all future sweepstakes to individuals who are at least 18 years old, ensuring that Websites that seek to utilize its service warrant that they are not child-directed sites, randomly auditing sites to help ensure that child-directed sites are not using its service, and deleting personal information in its database that was collected without parental notification from children younger than 13.

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.