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 game which is available from the Google Play & 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.
The appearance of the game is similar to many other low-quality animated games to be found on the app stores. The one character in the game finds herself in various situations and the player has a choice of items to get her out of them. There is very little written dialogue and the predicaments are largely obvious from the visual clues. The app describes itself as a puzzle game, the puzzles are simple enough to be accessible to younger players.
The limited gameplay found in this app is blighted by the frequency of the adverts. A thirty-second advert pops up after nearly every interaction, and many of them are inappropriate and not suitable for younger players, e.g. featuring suggestions of sexual nudity or chat roulette-type apps.
The reviews for this app on the App Store are inexplicably positive, with 37.7k ratings and an overall score of 4.4 out of 5. Many of the positive written reviews appear to have been written by children. The more negative reviews have a more adult tone to the writing.
Privacy:
The developers’ Privacy Policy includes a brief section on Children’s Privacy. It states that their services are not intended for use by those under 16 and they do not knowingly collect personal information from children.
Screenshots of Save the Girl
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.
