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.
3 Tiles - Tile Matching Games is a free match game in which players must connect 3 identical tiles such as cats, guitars, raindrops, cupcakes, and much more. Players have auxiliary tools which include, shuffles, hints, and undo that can be used in the game. The gameplay is simple in which players eliminate the same tiles to clear out all the tiles on the board. Players have seven empty spaces in the stack to put their tiles. The app has cute animation and visual content with vibrant graphics that would be child-directed with a mixed audience. The subject matter in the About Game section has information that is directed to children with words such as, “matching and puzzles.”
The advertisements are heavy and shown after each completed level through a video when a player needs more shuffles and much more without paying for a subscription. The advertisements shown are games such as, “Royal Match and My Perfect Hotel,” which are child-directed with a mixed audience. One advertisement called, “Mistplay,” directed to a general audience is consistently shown when a player needs either more shuffles, hints, or undo to continue playing the game.
The goal is to match triple identical tiles to move to the next level, collect power-ups, and become a tile master.
The app is rated E for Everyone in the Google Play store. There is no age gate. The app does offer in-app purchases in order to remove advertisements.
Privacy:
The developer’s privacy policy states, ”We do not knowingly collect…or direct or target interest-based advertising to anyone under the age of 16.”
Screenshots of 3 Tiles - Tile Matching Games
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.
