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 and Apple App Stores. 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.
Amy’s Animal Hair Salon is designed to assist the player with brushing, washing, coloring, twisting, and styling each cat's hair. Players also have the ability to spruce up the cat's garments. The gameplay permits players to adorn the beauty parlor and take magnificent photographs of the cats after their hair and clothes are completed. All each player has to do is complete all the tasks indicated in the game. The visual content and animation are vibrant with simplicity to it. The subject matter in the About Game section has information that is directed to children such as kids, boys, and girls. The sounds in the game evoke a sense of immersion and enhance the activities in the game.
The goal is to make cat clients happy with the hairstyles you create. Every cat client will have certain requests and when it is completed players earn money to unlock additional content.
There is advertising throughout the game during gameplay. Most of the advertisements are directed towards a mixed audience which includes different types of ads for, “Frosted Flakes.”
The app is rated E for Everyone in the Google Play store and rated 4+ in the iOS store. There is no age gate. Reviews posted in the Google Play Store show that children use the app. A review posted in August of 2020 says, ” Thank you so much for the app even though I am 9 years old.” Another review posted in August 2020 says, “ Hi I’m 12 years old I played this game.”
Privacy:
The developer’s privacy policy states, ” We do not collect any of your personal information...we may collect…how much time you spend in our game, types of mobile devices you use and similar.”
Screenshots of Amy’s Animal Hair Salon
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.
