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 & 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.
Crazy Dino Park gameplay is centered around searching for archaeological sites for dinosaur fossils and piecing the fossils together like a puzzle. As the game progresses players will be able to display fully grown dinosaurs and bring them back to life. Moreover, players can level up their dinosaurs by merging two of the same species. Players will put them in a dinosaur park for visitors to enjoy and advance through the game solving puzzles while collecting tons of tools. The visual content and animation have vibrant colors and detailed graphics with lively characters that appeal to children.
The advertisements are shown when the player needs more axes such as, “Car Jam and Merge Dragons.” These ads are child-directed and have a mixed audience. One advertisement for example,” GoHenry,” is directed to children.
Players can earn unique objects and extra items to increase the park's size. While playing the game, players collect coins while digging because the more you dig, the more expensive it becomes. Players can also collect gems for extra pickaxes.
There is an age gate but it does not affect gameplay. The app does have in-app purchasing and in-game currency. It is rated E for Everyone in the Google Play store and 4+ in the iOS store. A review posted in January of 2021 in the Google Play store says, “Love this game. My child plays it all the time.” Another review in the Google Play store in October of 2023 says, “My son and I love the game.” Both reviews have no age specification.
Privacy:
There is no COPPA policy. The developer’s privacy policy states, “data that we collect and provide to our partners…unique advertising identifiers, unique device identifiers, anonymized IP address.”
Find Pixalate's full catalogue of reviews in our CTV and Mobile App Review Page
Screenshots of Crazy Dino Park
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.
