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 screenshots of Plants vs Zombies 2 have a colorful theme with cartoon characteristics directed toward children. The game has a comical effect which keeps it interesting as you progress. The players set up a series of safeguards using plants to obliterate the approaching zombies. Players have to immediately respond by tapping the suns and coins as they show up on the screen while continuously planting safeguards as the zombie's approach. The animation has a hit-style action strategy with fun adventures defeating zombies.
The objective is to prevent the zombies from reaching the house. Players are rewarded if challenges are successful by moving to the next level and accumulating coins.
The game is rated E for Everyone 10+ on google play and 9+ in the Apple store. There is an age gate but players are still able to play once age entered under 13.
Privacy:
The developer’s privacy policy states, “we strive to provide age appropriate experiences for children… parents or guardians may need to provide permission to enable their child to access certain online features of our services.”
Screenshots of Plants vs Zombies 2:
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.
