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 game which is available 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.
Cat Dog Music Voice (formerly Cat Dog Magic Tiles) is a music tile game where players click scrolling tiles to play the notes in a song. Cat Dog Music Voice is set apart from other similar games by the fact that the songs are being “sung” by dogs and cats. Each note that is played is either a bark or a meow, with the dogs and cats covering numerous popular and classic songs.
The music is the main feature of this app. The app contains numerous songs that have been reimagined with dog barking and cat meowing. There is a wide variety of music to choose from. Popular songs and artists are featured within the app, such as songs by Justin Bieber, Ed Sheeran, and Lady Gaga. There are also classics, such as Beethoven and Bach. There are even songs from kid’s movies, such as Moana and Frozen, and classic kid’s songs, such as If You’re Happy and You Know It. While the music selection might appeal to a wide audience, the fact that each song has been reworked to animal sounds makes it less likely to appeal to adults and more likely to appeal to children.
Cartoon-like dogs and cats grace the home screen. While the default skin is a classic piano tile game, this can easily be changed to several different scrolling dogs and cats, in the same cartoon style as the ones on the home screen. The bright colors and floating stars in the background further mark this as a kid-friendly app.
Players earn diamonds and music notes based on how well they play each song. The diamonds can be used to extend their gameplay if they miss a tile during a song. The music notes can be used to purchase additional songs to play. This encourages players to continue to replay the same free songs in order to earn rewards that will allow them to unlock new songs.
Full-screen banner ads are shown upon first opening the app. Video advertisements are shown upon completion of each song and additional video ads can be played to earn music notes, diamonds, skins, or new songs. All of these advertisements are for general audiences things like cars, athletic wear, and other apps. There are also banner ads for child-directed apps that are displayed along the top of the screen displaying the final score for playing a song.
Cat Dog Music Voice is rated E in the US Google Play Store and PEGI 3 in the European Google Play Stores. The app description does not mention an age range or target audience, but the reviews reflect the fact that children are common users of the game. There are many reviews written by children and reviews written by parents, reflecting a wide range from toddlers to teens playing this game.
Privacy
According to the privacy policy, which is undated, the developers do not knowingly collect any personally identifiable information from users under 13. They do indicate that they and the third parties they work with use cookies and may collect information such as IP addresses and device information. The developers do share information with third parties. There is no age gate in place to check the age of a user.
Find Pixalate's full catalogue of reviews in our CTV and Mobile App Review Page
Screenshots of Cat Dog Music Voice
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.
