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.
Benji Bananas is a fun 2D platform adventure game in which players need to control Benji who enjoys eating bananas and swinging on plant vines simultaneously. The gameplay is a simple interactive game in which the players touch the screen to make Benji grab and release the vines while jumping from one to the other. Players steer Benji to collect bananas and complete missions for extra rewards. It has visual content and animation that is entertaining, and colorful designed with distinctive environmental graphics. The visual content, music, and sounds are geared towards children. The sound has entertaining animal voices with effects that sound realistic. Overall, the app is a great interactive addictive game with really nice graphics that all ages would play for hours.
The goal is to collect as many bananas to get more upgrades. The more you collect the player unlocks items and power-ups that help Benji the monkey travel further and gain better rewards.
There are advertisements during the game after completing a level such as “Block Blast,” which is geared toward children and a mixed audience.
The app is rated E for Everyone in the Google Play store and rated 4+ in the iOS store. There is no age gate. There is evidence that kids use the app. A review posted in July 2019 on the iOS store with no age specification says, “..I played this game when I was a toddler and I loved it.” A review posted with age in November of 2023 in the Google Play store says, “My favorite game since I was 7 years old.” Another review without age specification in May of 2023 in the Google Play stores says, “I can explain it to my grandchildren and they catch on we enjoy playing together.”
Privacy:
The developer’s privacy policy states, ” Services are not geared toward children under the age of 13 and we do not knowingly collect any personal information from such children...if we collect any personal information from children under the age of 13, we will either comply with the requirements of COPPA and gain prior verifiable parental consent or direct parental notification of the nature and intended use of such information.”
Find Pixalate's full catalogue of reviews in our CTV and Mobile App Review Page
Screenshots of Benji Bananas
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.
