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 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.
Baby Einstein is a child-directed CTV app featuring numerous educational videos geared toward very young children. The videos focus on a variety of topics including learning letters, numbers, and colors. The app organizes the videos by categories- Animal Favorites; The Sandbox; Art, Shapes & Numbers; Baby’s First; Language; Music; World Exploration; Science And Nature; Manners Manor; Patch’s Number Forest & Counting With Earl; and Cal’s Sound Yard.
The app itself features a bright background with video thumbnails that give a visual representation of the possible viewing options. The videos also contain bright colors and child-friendly visuals. There is a mix of live-action and animated videos, some even bring the two together with live action and animation together.
The animated videos most often feature animated animals, such as caterpillars and giraffes. These animated animals most often appear to be baby animals, further appealing to the expected audience of toddlers and babies. They are most often overlayed on a cheery outdoor background with a large shining sun.
Much of the live-action videos feature child actors that are singing, dancing, or demonstrating a new skill to the viewers. The child actors seem to be mostly under 5 years old, reflecting the expected age of children interacting with the app and viewing the videos. Some live-action videos also contain stock footage of various content- such as musical instruments, animals, or countries around the world.
Most of the videos have some type of music playing in the background. The beat and style are matched to the videos, some more upbeat and some more contemplative. Some of the videos are focused specifically on music, such as a video featuring different musical instruments around the world.
While some of the videos focus more on visuals, many do rely on verbal communication to teach a concept to the child. These videos use simple language to appeal to younger viewers. Many of the animated characters speak directly to the child viewers and encourage participation by asking children to repeat things or trace things in the air.
Video advertisements play at intervals while using the app. The video ads are general audience, each ad that I saw while testing the app on Firestick was for Nashville tourism.
The description and content of the app reflect the developer’s intention of creating a child-directed app. The description indicates, “Baby Einstein helps parents cultivate curiosity — within their children and themselves” and “your baby’s view of the world will expand.”
While Roku does not collect written reviews, most of the reviews on Amazon are from parents or grandparents writing about their children and grandchildren using the app.
Privacy
According to the privacy policy, which was last updated on January 1, 2023, this app “does not track its users over time and across third-party websites to provide targeted advertising.” It also indicates that some features may contain age gates to ensure that children are not accessing them. However, there were no parts of Baby Einstein that had an age gate.
The privacy policy does indicate that more information about children’s privacy can be found in the Children’s Privacy Notice, however, the link to this page just links back to the same general privacy statement.
Screenshots of Baby Einstein
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.
