Mobile Advertising

October 2022 Children’s Privacy Index for Mobile Advertising

Pixalate's Children's Privacy Index for Sellers helps the ad tech industry navigate compliance with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). Advertisers spend 3x more per app on likely child-directed apps, according to Pixalate's Q3 2022 data.
Pixalate

Pixalate, the global market-leading fraud protection, privacy, and compliance analytics platform for Connected TV (CTV) and Mobile Advertising, today released the October 2022 Children’s Privacy Index for Mobile Advertising.

The monthly index benchmarks Supply-Side Platforms (SSPs) based on the percentage of ads they sell that are on apps that are likely child-directed, as assessed by Pixalate’s COPPA Methodology.

Key Takeaways
  • September & October 2022 reported one seller with a Critical risk level. No sellers were in this range in August.
  • October saw a 17% drop in the number of sellers rated with a Child Audience Risk level of High
  • Sellers with a Medium rating for Child Audience Risk in October 2022 increased by 23%.
  • The majority of sellers (51%) are rated with a Low Child Audience Risk, but this is down from 55% in September

According to Pixalate’s COPPA Risk Scorecard Report Q3 2022, there are 419K+ likely child-directed mobile apps across the Google & Apple mobile app stores, which is approximately 8% of all apps across both stores. These apps can pose a COPPA compliance risk to advertising buyers and sellers, and awareness of which apps are child-directed is an important step in mitigating compliance risks. With advertisers spending 3x more per app on child-directed apps than general audience apps, oversight of these apps is crucial to avoid costly violations.

Visit Pixalate’s Knowledge Base for more information about the Children’s Privacy Index for Mobile Advertising.

What is COPPA – and why it matters for advertisers

For nearly 25 years, the privacy of children online in the U.S. has been governed by COPPA and its implementing Rule, which has come under scrutiny as regulators aim to address its application in today’s complex advertising ecosystem.

COPPA bars the collection of data from children under 13 without verified parental consent. Advertisers, ad buyers, and sellers are at risk of collecting childrens’ personal data from apps not clearly labeled as child-directed in the app stores. As the gatekeepers of the mobile app stores, Google & Apple are well positioned to provide clarity yet they do not require developers of apps targeting children to identify as such nor do they prominently feature that information in the app stores. Doing so would not only help parents protect their children online, but would also enable ad tech companies in complying with COPPA.

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