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 a popular mobile app 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.
This child-directed app allows the user to interact with a cartoon donkey, distort their voice, and play minigames.
The animations are child-friendly, with a smiling donkey that dances around on the screen, drinks a bottle, and interacts with an animated mouse. There are numerous minigames that can also be played that are full of animated animals and creatures. Even the loading screen is an animation of Donald Donkey’s head spinning around in circles.
The main interactions with Donald Donkey focus on the donkey’s sounds, such as singing notes when a piano is played, snoring while sleeping, or music that he is dancing to. Users are able to record themselves talking and let Donald Donkey repeat it back in a deep voice, something that would keep children entertained. When playing the mini games there is simple background music that differs in each game, some a simple drum beat and others upbeat circus music. The mini games also have the individual characters making little noises, indicating cheering or irritation depending on how the user is performing, something that would motivate children while playing.
The advertisements seemed to be mostly geared toward young children, including ads for other child-directed apps and toys. However, there are also ads for things that would appeal to parents, such as guitars, hotel chains, and computer software. There is an option to pay to upgrade to an ad-free version of the app, although the cost is not clearly stated.
There are numerous reviews from parents indicating their children use this app and reviews from children indicating they are using the app. This app has a US rating of E and a European PEGI rating of 3 and up.
Privacy
According to the developer’s privacy information that the Google Play store links to, this app does not collect any data from users under 13 years of age. The app has a neutral age gate in place that allows users to enter an age under 13.
Screenshots for Talking Donkey Ice Fun:
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.
