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.
ABC Kids - Tracing & Phonics is an engaging educational app for learners 5 or younger with educational activities focused on basic phonics and letter association. The gameplay shows letters in order with cute fun graphics designed to engage kids to match and identify letters. Once the players complete a stage they are celebrated by the lion character with positive reinforcement. It has visual content and animation that is fun, entertaining, and vibrant and inspires kids' imagination as they learn and play. The music and sound are geared toward children with cheerful kid-like voices and novel sound effects. The subject matter in the About Game section has information that is directed to children. It states, “Any toddler, kindergartener or preschool-aged child can learn English and the English alphabet simply by following the arrows with their fingers.” Overall, the app is great for kids to develop an understanding of fine motor skills and promotes cognitive development in young learners.
There is a reward incentive to collect stickers after tasks which encourages kids to complete more lessons after every activity.
The app is rated E for Everyone in the Google Play store and rated 4+ in the iOS store. There is no age gate or third-party advertisements.
Privacy:
The developer’s privacy policy states, ” Your privacy is important to RV appstudios and we are committed to protecting the privacy of parents and kids…we currently do not serve any third-party advertisements..we use technologies..to anonymously identify your computer or device.”
Find Pixalate's full catalogue of reviews in our CTV and Mobile App Review Page
Screenshots of ABC Kids - Tracing & Phonics
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.
