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 game which is available from the Roku Channel 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.
Tasty Tale is based on three-in-a-row puzzles where the aim is to collect the ingredients needed for each recipe. Characters from fairy tales and nursery rhymes come to your cafe and each character prompts a new puzzle to complete. On every new level, the puzzle contains ingredients for a new dessert recipe or sweet treat. For example, in the lemon meringue pie recipe, you need to collect lemons, eggs, and wheat. The use of three-in-a-row puzzles plus delicious foods is a combination that has served Candy Crush Saga very well, and Tasty Tale is putting their spin in it here.
The presence of nursery rhymes and fairy tale characters is a strong indicator of the game being child-directed. Characters observed during the game included Pinocchio, Little Red Riding Hood, and the Big Bad Wolf, amongst others. It is possible to play as a guest but users are periodically prompted to share their progress to Facebook or Twitter.
Privacy
Upon launching the game, users are asked to confirm their agreement with the Privacy Policy. The agreement box also states that the users are confirming that they are “of age” but there is no further detail as to what this entails. The Privacy Policy has no dedicated section for children’s privacy and simply states: “We do not knowingly disclose personal information about children under 18 years of age to independent third parties even with consent.”
Screenshots of Tasty Tale
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.
