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 and Apple App Stores. 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.
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The gameplay screenshots for Word Swipe Pic show that the content is visually directed to children with a mixed audience based on the age of the model animation characters, and colorful images. Players swipe in a straight line, forward and backward to form words to fit the category in correlation with the pictures presented. This word-based puzzle uses simple controls to connect the letters that form words with the clues given with each animated image. Players will enjoy a nice array of word search puzzles. The answers for each puzzle are in the objects of the pictures. It is great for learning pattern recognition.
The incentive of the game is to earn gold coins and keys that can be used to buy hints or shuffle the letters that help reveal the next word to swipe. Players can also earn currency by watching optional video ads instead of in-app purchases.
The ads shown when playing after each level are, “royal match, wordscape, and jitterbug.” These ads are geared toward children and adults.
The game is rated E for Everyone in the Google play store and 4+ in the Apple Store. There is no age gate. There is evidence that the app is used by children. A review posted in April 2020 in the Google Play store says, “Educational. Definitely loved by my daughter.” The review did not give a specific age.
Privacy:
The developer’s privacy policy states, “we do not knowingly collect personal information directly from children under the age of sixteen without parental consent."
Screenshots of Word Swipe Pic
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.
