Welcome to Pixalate’s CTV & Mobile App Manual Reviews According to COPPA, a series containing the detailed factors the Trust & Safety Advisory Board educators used to assess an app’s child-directedness.
The educators manually review thousands of mobile apps available in the Google Play & Apple App Stores as well as connected TV (CTV) apps from the Roku Channel Store and Amazon Fire TV App Store using the COPPA Rule factors shown below & make those results available to the public at ratings.pixalate.com.
This post takes a look at a popular mobile app (1 million+ downloads) from the Google Play Store and Apple App Store. Our reviewer discusses how the subjective factors set forth in the COPPA Rule apply to the app and factor into the reviewer's determination as to whether the app is child-directed or general audience (i.e., it is not targeting children).
The teacher will indicate the factors they relied upon in their assessment using the 10 factors shown below that reflect the 10 child-directed factors in the COPPA Rule.
1LINE - a one-stroke puzzle game is a fun, free, addictive puzzle-solving game that is designed to sharpen players' concentration and memory. In the beginning levels, however, as players progress the puzzles become more difficult. There are 500 stages and 10 different levels. 1Line has a simple yet difficult gameplay in which players need to anticipate their moves in order to trace the shape properly to avoid overlapping. The visual content of the app has straightforward graphics with a fun puzzle appeal. Overall, the game helps improve spatial reasoning and reinforces mental speed.
The type of advertisements shown are geared towards a general audience, such as, “Walmart and Temu.” These types of ads are shown at the bottom banner of the game. In between plays, there are ads that are child-directed in a mixed audience, such as, “Tile Triple 3D.” Advertisements show after every level.
The app is rated E for Everyone in the Google Play store and rated 17+ in the iOS store. There is evidence children use the app based on a review posted in January 2018 on the iOS store that says, “I play it at school. My little brother plays this game and just turned 3 years old in November.” Ask for email permissions. There is no age gate but there is in-app purchasing.
Privacy:
The developer’s privacy policy states, “We do not knowingly collect or solicit personal data from anyone under the age of 16 or knowingly allow such persons to use our services…in the event that we learn that we have collected personal data from a child under the age of 16, we will delete that information as quickly as possible.”
Find Pixalate's full catalogue of reviews in our CTV and Mobile App Review Page
Screenshots of 1LINE - one-stroke puzzle game
Pixalate’s Trust and Safety Advisory Board was created to bring in individuals with experience using child-directed apps in the classroom to review and assess which apps are child-directed. This manual review process serves to quality check Pixalate’s automated review process. See our full methodology for more information.
Disclaimer
This blog post published by Pixalate is available for informational purposes only and is not considered legal advice. By viewing this blog post, the reader understands and agrees that there is no attorney-client relationship between the reader and the blog publisher. The blog should not be used as a substitute for legal advice from a licensed professional attorney in the applicable jurisdiction(s), and readers are urged to consult their own legal counsel on any specific legal questions concerning any specific situation. The content of this blog post reflects Pixalate's opinions with respect to factors that Pixalate believes may be useful to the digital media industry. Pixalate's opinions are just that, opinions, which means that they are neither facts nor guarantees; and this blog post is not intended to impugn the standing or reputation of any entity, person or app, but instead, to report findings pertaining to mobile and Connected TV (CTV) apps.
