Anheuser-Busch is going high-tech to promote its products via Bud TV, with beer-related content streamed over the internet and to cell phones. But potential viewers will be required to do no more than enter a birth date to prove that they are over age 21, the Associated Press reported Sept. 7.

Bud TV will feature 24-hour-a-day programs, including comedy, sports, and reality shows. The brewer says the programs are aimed at 21- to 27-year-olds, but it's up to visitors to enter their correct birthdate when entering the site. Unlike other industries -- including movie companies and tobacco firms -- Anheuser-Busch and other brewers don't verify the information provided by visitors.

"To some degree we have to trust the registration," said Tony Ponturo, Anheuser-Busch's vice president of global media and sports marketing.

George Hacker, director of the Alcohol Policy Project at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, labeled the Bud TV registration process "a farce."

"The Internet provides [alcohol companies] a wider range of opportunities to not only reach younger and younger consumers, including underage drinkers, but also greater means of interaction with them, which is very important," he said.

A 2003 study by the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth found that 34 percent of "in-depth" visitors to the Bud Light website were underage, as were 15 percent of visitors to the Budweiser site.

Anheuser-Busch Vice President Jim Schumacker, who will oversee Bud TV, put the burden on parents to monitor their children's web-surfing habits. "We feel there should be some accountability," he said. "I would want to know what my kids are doing. I would not let them get on this Web site -- there are a lot of Web sites I would not let them get on. They might not be happy about it, but that's the rule of the household."

John Phillips, chief executive of online identity-verification firm Aristotle International Inc., says the technology exists now to confirm the true age of website visitors by cross-checking the information with government databases. "The fact of the matter is that these kinds of procedures are happening a million times a day," Phillips said. "You don't have to be asking for a lot of information from the consumer ... There's a real big gap between doing nothing and doing something."