BBB National Programs, an independent non-profit organization that oversees more than a dozen national industry self-regulation programs that provide third-party accountability and dispute resolution services to companies, including outside and in-house counsel, consumers, and others in arenas such as privacy, advertising, data collection, child-directed marketing, and more.
CISR supports responsible business leaders in developing fair, future-proof best practices, and the education of the public on the conditions necessary for industry self-regulation.
Decisions reached by the self-regulatory system's investigative and appellate units are publicly reported through a press release.
In addition, NAD monitors national advertising and investigates complaints filed by consumers and advocacy groups or referred by local Better Business Bureaus.
CARU routinely monitors advertisements found in all media (broadcast and cable TV, radio, children's magazines, comic books, the Internet and mobile services, and more) for compliance with its Guidelines.
In 1996, CARU added a section to its Guidelines that highlight issues that are unique to the Internet including Websites directed at children under age 13 for online privacy.
[12] Participants who adhere to CARU's Guidelines are deemed in compliance with COPPA and essentially insulated from FTC enforcement action as long as they comply with program requirements.
CARU's Self-Regulatory Guidelines are deliberately subjective, going beyond the issues of truthfulness and accuracy to take into account the uniquely impressionable and vulnerable child audience.
When an advertiser or challenger disagrees with an NAD, DSSRC, or CARU recommendation, they may appeal the decision to the NARB for additional review.
“During the same period, Congress passed a host of consumer-minded bills, including ‘truth-in-packaging’ legislation, the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act and the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act that banned cigarette advertising from the broadcast media.
In his monograph, Zanot reported that Howard Bell, then-president of the AAF American Advertising Federation and current chairman of the NARB, “became a catalyst in the development of new self-regulatory measures.” Zanot also excerpted a speech delivered in September 1970 by the late Victor Elting, Jr., then-chairman of the AAF, at a meeting of the Chicago Advertising Club.
As Zanot reported, the organization received an “unexpected boost” when FTC Commissioner Mary Gardiner Jones, a consumer advocate, declared the system to be “a self-regulatory effort of truly historic proportions.”[18] In 2012, the National Advertising Review Council (NARC), rebranded as the Advertising Self-Regulatory Council (ASRC).
The new name and new brand were designed to offer an explicit statement about the mission and purpose of the organization—to advance the self-regulation of the advertising industry.
[19] In 2019, ASRC folded into BBB National Programs, a new independent non-profit organization established as a result of the restructuring of the Council of Better Business Bureaus.
[20] On June 15, 2021 BBB National Programs was the recipient of the Best Sectoral Initiative award for the DIrect Selling Self-Regualtory Council, an initiative developed to promote truth and transparency in the direct selling industry including effective proactive monitoring of the marketplace.