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 for Harry Potter: Puzzles and Spells challenges players puzzle solving and matching abilities through different levels. Each level is coupled with moments from the movie series. The characters of the film show up to assist by either changing the gems to another color, clearing the gems from the board, or giving out items. Once players have completed each level, they unlock magical powers, spells, and creatures that would be helpful during difficult levels. The game's visual content and animation are designed and have various vibrant colors with impressive graphics. The language in the About Me section has key words that are directed to a mixed audience that is child-directed, such as, “witches, wizards, and puzzles.”
The objective is to get a certain number of stars and complete a series of races to beat the boss of each race.
The app is rated E for Everyone in the Google Play store and 4+ in the iOS store.
Privacy:
The developer’s privacy policy states, “We direct our services to a general audience and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13 years old. We may direct certain services to an audience of all ages including children.”
Screenshots of Harry Potter: Puzzles and Spells
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.
