New York, NY - October 9, 2003 - After receiving an inquiry from the Children's Advertising Review Unit (CARU) of the Council of Better Business Bureaus (CBBB), ripkenbaseball.com, the official Website for the company that oversees Cal Ripken's baseball-related activities such as camps and clinics, made some changes to address children's online privacy. However, it did not make all the modifications requested by CARU and, thus, the site falls short of compliance with CARU's Self-Regulatory Guidelines for Children's Advertising (Guidelines).

The 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. ripkenbaseball.com had been advertising on sikids.com, the official Website for Sports Illustrated for Kids Magazine.

The "KIDZONE" area of ripkenbaseball.com contained a link in which children who wanted information about baseball camps were invited to "email us your home address and email address…Be sure to tell your mom and dad about it too!"

Another portion of the site, the "RIPKEN FANZONE," also asked for both online and offline contact information. While it did ask for a registrant's birth date, the form contained the following tip-off language: "All registrants must be at least 13 years old."

The ripkenbaseball.com site made modifications to bring it into compliance with the federal COPPA - removing the problematic language and link from the "KIDZONE" as well as the tip-off language from the "FANZONE." However, in the FANZONE sign-up, the site failed to implement a tracking mechanism, as required under the Guidelines; such a mechanism prevents children from hitting the back button and changing their age to circumvent the age-screening process. The site also failed to implement any form of age-screening in another area of the site-"CAMPS"-where extensive personally identifiable information is collected.

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.