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 Apple App 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.
Wild Cake - Crazy Dessert Chef is a simple interactive dessert cooking game that lets players decorate cakes and eat them. Players get to choose numerous cake shapes and decorate them with sprinkles, frosting, and more. The dessert cooking game is a free and fun way to think outside the box, test ingredients, and learn preparation methods. The animation and visual content have high-quality graphics with an easy-to-use interface that is child-directed with a mixed audience appeal.
Advertisements are shown throughout in a bottom banner that is geared towards a general audience with ads such as, “TikTok and SKS Truck Trailer & Repair.” Some advertisements are child-directed with a mixed audience such as, “Candy Crush Saga.” These ads are shown before you play the game and after you complete each food design.
The app is rated 4+ in the iOS store. The app is ready to use after download with no age gate.
Privacy:
The developer’s privacy policy does not have a COPPA policy. It does state, “The information we collect about you relates to the type of device you are using, how you play our games, other games or apps you use on your device and may include information you submit when creating an account with us.”
Find Pixalate's full catalogue of reviews in our CTV and Mobile App Review Page
Screenshots of Wild Cake - Crazy Dessert Chef
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.
