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.
2 Player games: the Challenge is a collection of mini-games such as ping pong, matching, solitaire, hungry hippos, tic tac toe, and much more. Players can choose between 1 or 2-player games by using AI or other online players. The visual content and animation of the games have bright, clean, simple, and colorful graphics that are child-directed.
The app is rated E for Everyone in the Google Play store and rated 4+ in the iOS store. There is no age gate. The app is free to download and play games on or offline. It does have in-app purchases. App reviews show that children use the app. A review posted in the Google Play store in August of 2023 says, “My wife and I (and kids) occasionally play this.” Another review posted in September of 2023 states, “I love to see the little ones understand the mechanics of the game.” There was no age specification in either review.
Privacy:
There is no COPPA policy. The developer’s privacy policy states, ” We do not collect sensitive data...we will not collect additional categories of personal data without notifying you…we collect identifiers, commercial information, internet information, and geolocation data…you can make a verifiable request on behalf of a child under your parental authority.” When it comes to safety, the actual app does not have any content that would be harmful to kids with proper supervision. Notwithstanding, there is generally a risk of experiencing inappropriate conduct from other players.
Screenshots of 2 Player games: The challenge
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.
