CARU Celebrates the Holidays with a Toy Drive

The Children's Advertising Review Unit (CARU) hosted its first Toy Drive to benefit the Marine Toys for Tots foundation. CARU invited members of its office and building to contribute new, unwrapped toys in an effort to spread holiday joy to some of the more than 15 million children living in poverty in the United States.

CARU collected over 50 toys to donate! There were toys for children of all ages. From building blocks to board games, CARU hopes to brighten many children's holidays.

CARU hopes to make this an annual tradition in an effort to help make the season bright! Toys for Tots have drop-off locations across New York City. Toys for Tots are accepting donations until Monday December 14th. To find a drop-off location near you, click here.

Toy distribution takes place mid to late December. Coordinators pick up the toys and store them in central warehouses where the toys are sorted by age and gender. At Christmas, Coordinators, with the assistance of local social welfare agencies, church groups, and other local community agencies, distribute the toys to the less fortunate children of the community. Over the years, Marines have established close working relationships with social welfare agencies, churches and other local community agencies which are well qualified to identify the needy children in the community and play important roles in the distribution of the toys.

Remember, one toy and one act of kindness can really make a difference to one child. Happy holidays to you and yours!

CARU Speaks at Community Board in Manhattan

CARU staff attorney Andra Dallas gave a presentation to Community Board 1, serving lower Manhattan on Monday, December 7 th . Andra spoke to the Board’s Youth Committee about the importance of teaching children about understanding advertising and safe online practices. District Manager Noah Pfefferblit remarked, “thank you for your informative presentation to our Youth Committee members,” and offered the Board’s assistance if they “can be helpful to the important efforts at the Children's Advertising Review Unit.” Are you interested in having a CARU staff member visit your community board? Contact adallas@caru.bbb.org.

i-Dressup Shuts Down in Wake of Privacy Breach and COPPA Violation

I-Dressup, a fashion-themed social website for teens, has completely shut down as part of a settlement with the New Jersey Department of Consumer Affairs, following a massive privacy breach and violations of the federal Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and New Jersey state law. In September 2016, a hacker sent 2.2 million i-Dressup account credentials to technology blog Arstechnica as well as to haveibeenpwned.com, a searchable online database of data breaches. Responding to the news, New Jersey investigators discovered that 2,519 of the compromised accounts belonged to New Jersey children below age 13. I-Dressup, allegedly aware that it had child users, had violated COPPA by failing to obtain verifiable parental consent prior to collecting and processing personal information from the children, including first and last names and email addresses. In a consent decree with the New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Gerwal, parent company Unixiz has closed i-Dressup,

Kids Internet Design and Safety Act Seeks to Protect Children from Harmful Online Content

United States Senators, Mr. Richard Blumenthal from Connecticut and Mr. Edward Markey from Massachusetts, introduced a new bill referred to as the Kids Internet Design and Safety Act (the “KIDS Act”). One of the Senator’s introducing the KIDS Act, Mr. Edward Markey, was the co-author of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (“COPPA”). The KIDS Act seeks to include noteworthy advertising rules and create new protections for children online, specifically for online users under the age of 16. The proposed advertising rules within the KIDS Act are to ban websites from: (1) exposing young online users to advertisements “with embedded interactive elements”; (2) recommending any content involving alcohol, nicotine, or tobacco to young online users; and (3) recommending content that includes influencer marketing, like unboxing videos, or host-selling to young online users. Additionally, the KIDS Act seeks to prohibit certain online features to protect children, like prohibiting

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