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.
Play DOH Create ABCs is a vibrant and colorful graphic of animation designed to help kids foster fundamental qualities expected for writing and reading. It assists children in learning how to recognize, compose, and write using appropriate handwriting strokes and partner letters with sounds. The gameplay features different learning activities where kids create their own scenes. The animation has adorable brightly colored characters that children would enjoy. The sound and voice in the app are clear with narration that is easily understood. The gameplay has different learning activities that prompt children to pick letters, use their fingers to bring the play-doh together for proper stroke to form letters, and choose which colors they wish to learn about as they build models to either save or squish. The subject matter of the app is directed to children as they learn to utilize all 26 letters of the alphabet. The app assists children in observational learning and meeting milestones.
The goal is to triumphantly form a letter to receive a Play DOH treat that moves when touched and can be added to the child's gallery.
The app is rated E for Everyone in the Google Play store and rated 4+, made for ages 0-5. There is no age gate.
Privacy:
The developer’s privacy policy states, “are for use by children with parental participation and supervision…does not collect personal information from children under 13”
Screenshots of Play DOH Create ABCs
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.
