The Children’s Advertising Review Unit CARU, an investigative unit of the marketing industry’s system of self legislation, has basically two missions: 1 to give protection to toddlers from deceptive or inappropriate advertising and marketing in all media, and; 2 to make sure that, in a web atmosphere, toddlers’s data is gathered and dealt with in a responsible manner. CARU works with businesses to ensure their advertising and data collection practices adjust to all significant laws and CARU’s self regulatory guidelines, which consider the uniquely impressionable and vulnerable child target audience. CARU’s Self Regulatory Program for Children’s Advertising gives unique guidance to toddlers’s advertisers on how to deal sensitively and honestly with little ones’s issues. These guidelines come with, but transcend, the issues of truthfulness and accuracy to take into account the uniquely impressionable and susceptible child target market. As an extension of its preliminary venture, in 1996, CARU added a phase to its checklist that highlights issues, akin to children’s privacy, which are unique to the Internet and online sites directed at little ones age 12 and under.
CARU’s guidelines were updated in 2014 to mirror adjustments in COPPA.