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.
The gameplay centers on an immensely tall tower in which players personalize furniture and decorations for the collected cats to reside. It fosters an efficient methodology for defining and accomplishing goals. The screenshots for Cat Game-The Cats Collector show that the visual and animation content is full of colorful cartoon graphics with child-oriented characteristics. The game starts with one cat and once the player feeds the cat, the cat will make a delivery. Every delivery is a chance to either get a new cat or supplies to decorate and build the cat tower. The language in the app section says,” Cat game is perfect for kids.”
The objective of the game is to collect every cat and construct every single item for each level of the cat tower. The player’s tower rises in height with each level they complete.
The game is rated E for Everyone in the Google play store and 4+ in the Apple Store. There is no age gate. The app shows evidence that children do use the app. A review posted on Google Play in February of 2023 says, “My kids talked me into playing this so we could play together. ” Another review on Google Play posted in April of 2023 says,” My daughter and I both play it together.” No specific age was given by the parents.
Privacy:
The developer’s privacy policy states,” websites and services are not intended for children under the age of 13 and we do not knowingly collect personal information from such children.
Screenshots of Cat Game - The Cats Collector!
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.
