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 & 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.
Ice Cream Drop is an endless-dropping game featuring a cute scoop of frozen dessert. It uses the gyroscope feature on the phone so as the player tilts the device left or right, the ice cream responds to that movement. The Scoop slides left and right, collecting gold coins and falling between gaps in the floors to progress downwards. To make things trickier, pesky flies, walls, and floating platforms can impede your progress. The game is easy to play, there are no lengthy tutorials or controls to master which means it is easily accessible to children.
The game pops up with three goals on each level. These goals require a degree of concentration, as well as several attempts to achieve them. These goals include scoring more than 2000 points in a game, knocking out 3 flies, and collecting 100 gold.
Ice Cream Drop features a cute, kawaii-style ice cream scoop as its main character. The background features colourful rainbows and the in-game text uses a bubble font. The overall look of the game is very child-oriented and will definitely appeal to younger players.
Privacy
The privacy policy states that users under 13 should get their parent's permission fo access the game. The Developer website has a fairly brief Privacy Policy which contains a short paragraph discussing their approach to children’s privacy.
Screenshots of Ice Cream Drop:
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.
