New York, NY – May 15 , 2002 – The Children's Advertising Review Unit (CARU) of the Council Of Better Business Bureaus Inc. is pleased to announce that snood.com, operated by Snood LLC, has agreed to modify its Website to comply with CARU's Self-Regulatory Guidelines for Children's Advertising (the Guidelines). Snood is an online game that, according to promotional material, can be played by children as young as 2 or 3 years old.

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. Snood.com had a mailing list where visitors submitted an e-mail address but there was no age-screening or parental notification process in place. Similarly, there was a bulletin board where visitors could post their e-mail address, hometown, and interests for all guests of the site to see but, once again, there was no age screening; nor was there a parental consent mechanism.

Snood LLC agreed that visitors will be screened in a neutral manner to prevent submission of personally identifiable information from children under 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.