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. 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.
Riddles for kids: Escape Room is an adorable game with eye-catching puzzles, quirky escape rooms, and thrilling adventures that young kids will enjoy. Players follow cute hippo characters through every part of a lighthouse searching for clues in order to get to the top of the lighthouse. There are tons of levels that consist of stowed items in the escape rooms and educational children's games. Players have to solve riddles and find secret passages to get to a higher level. The visual content is brightly colored with charming animations and awe-inspiring graphics. The music and sounds have engaging narration and relatable kids' voices that are interactive. The subject matter in the About Game section has information that is directed to children. It states, “Our escape rooms have the best exciting games for kids.” Overall, the riddles help children develop critical thinking skills through fun-loving entertainment.
The goal is to reach the top of the lighthouse and turn on the bright lights in order for Grandpa Hippo to reach the coastline during a severe sea storm.
There is “Homes.com” advertising as a banner directed to a general audience within the game and some ads are shown after completed activities such as, “My cat and Bridge race,” which is directed to a mixed audience. The game has in-app purchases to avoid the advertisement.
The app is rated E for Everyone in the Google Play store. There is no age gate. A review posted in July of 2023 says, “Enjoyful for my daughter.” The review did not specify an age.
Privacy:
The developer’s privacy policy states, ”does not knowingly collect any personal information from children or within the child-oriented portion of our services...our services directed to children users, we collect information which includes persistent identifiers..collected solely for the purpose of providing functionality and support for our internal operations.”
Screenshots of Riddles for kids: Escape Room
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.
