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.
Talking Parrot Couple is a fun interactive app for young children as well as adults. The gameplay starts with a pair of playful parrots that interact with the player by accurately repeating whatever you say to them in a very funny screechy voice. Players give the parrots different directions through the widgets on the screen to see them charm each other, dance, take flight through the sky, or fight with one another. Players can choose to change the background scenery, play more games in the app, and feature photos of the parrots and reassemble them as a puzzle. The subject matter in the “About this app,” says, “fun for children of all ages.” The visual content has a bright colorful design with vivid colored parrot animations. This is an entertaining app that is geared towards children.
There is an incentive to procure gold coins after the parrots pass through rings and avoid obstacles in the mini parrot games.
Once the app is downloaded, there are banner advertisements such as “TEMU and Google Shopping.” These advertisements are directed to a general audience. Other advertisements directed to children, such as, “Jumpstar and Talking Tyrannosaurus,” are played in between switching to play more games within the app.
The app is rated E for Everyone in the Google Play store. There is no age gate. A review posted in November of 2019 on the Google Play store says, “Great fun…4 & 5-year-old family members enjoy playing it too.” Another review posted in February of 2021 says, “My small brother likes it. The review does not specify age.
Privacy:
The developer’s privacy policy states, ”does not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from children under 13 years of age…these services do not address anyone under the age of 13.”
Find Pixalate's full catalogue of reviews in our CTV and Mobile App Review Page
Screenshots of Talking Parrot Couple
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.
