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 on 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.
Amanda’s Review:
The app we’re going to look at today is from the Google Play Store; a truck driving simulation gaming app with over 5 million downloads. I’ll discuss how the subjective factors set forth in the COPPA Rule apply to the app and factor into my determination as to whether the app is child-directed or general audience (i.e., it is not targeting children).
The gameplay environment of the Transporter 3D app is composed of computer generated city and country landscapes with buildings, roads, and other features that are clearly designed to resemble realistic locations. Players can choose between different large transport vehicles to drive such as semi and flatbed trucks. The visual content and subject matter of this game appear to be targeting an audience above age 13 as no visible features during gameplay are overtly child-directed.
During gameplay, after losing or successfully completing a level, a video advertisement is served. The video advertisements that played during my assessment were from Google Wallet, Ray Ban Sunglasses, and TikTok. None of these advertisements appeared child-directed.
When looking at popular apps like Transporter 3D that do not appear to be child-directed based on visual content, subject matter, music and sounds, and other features that could be apparent during gameplay or visible in the Play Store description, it’s important to sift through reviews and look for any possible reviews from children under the age of 13. After searching the reviews using child-related keyword searches, I did not find any reviews that appeared to be posted from children or referenced children using the app.
Privacy
This app’s privacy policy does not mention that it handles data differently based on a user’s age. There is no section that covers how the developer would handle children’s data if it obtained actual knowledge of children using the app.
Screenshots of Transporter 3D:
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.
