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. 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.
Candy Fever is a cool candy puzzle matching game that is simple to start but can be challenging along the way. Players need to solve the matching puzzles and collect the candies to complete each level. Players can make sweet boosters to reach a high score. The game's visual content has vibrant colors and characters with impressive graphics. The characteristics and animation are directed.
The goal is to match as many candies as you can in 60 seconds.
The app does feature banner advertisements at the bottom of the game while playing. Ads such as Temu and SSI are played and geared towards an adult general audience. Even though it is safe for kids to play as far as the game itself because the content is acceptable, the ads are extensive with broad permissions.
The app is rated E for Everyone in the Google Play store. There is no age gate. The reviews in Google Play show that children use the app. A review posted in February 2019 says, “I am a 10-year-old girl playing this game.”
Privacy:
The developer’s privacy policy states, “This service is not directed to children younger than 13 years of age…we do not knowingly collect or solicit personal information from anyone under the age of 13.”
Screenshots of Candy Fever
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.
