What kidSAFE Listed Actually Means (and What SkyBuds Has)
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kidSAFE Listed is a status SkyBuds has earned from the kidSAFE Seal Program, an independent seal program for children's digital products. You can confirm it yourself at kidsafe.com, and you should.
Disclosure up front: we make SkyBuds. This post is about our own seal status, so read it the way you would read any company describing itself, then go verify.
Why seals are on toy sites at all
A talking toy is software as much as it is fabric. It has a microphone, a cloud service behind it, and children's privacy rules it has to follow. Seals exist because parents cannot audit any of that from a product page. An independent program putting its name next to a product gives you something concrete to check.
A seal is a starting point, though. It tells you an outside party looked. You still get to ask your own questions about what the toy records and what you can see as a parent.
What the kidSAFE Seal Program is
The kidSAFE Seal Program is an independent seal program for children's digital products. What each seal covers and how the program works are their rules to explain, so we are not going to paraphrase them here. Read them straight from the source at kidsafe.com.
What SkyBuds has, stated exactly
SkyBuds has earned kidSAFE Listed status. That is real and current, and it traces back to the program's own records.
Our COPPA certification is in progress. It is not complete. COPPA is the US law covering children's online privacy, and certification is a separate status from being Listed; kidsafe.com explains what each covers. Until ours is finished, we will not use the word certified anywhere.
| Claim | SkyBuds status today | How to verify |
|---|---|---|
| kidSAFE Listed | Earned | Look SkyBuds up at kidsafe.com |
| COPPA certification | In progress, not complete | Check kidsafe.com; we will say so plainly on our own pages when it completes |
| "kidSAFE certified" or "COPPA certified" | We claim neither today | If you see an ad making either claim about SkyBuds right now, it did not come from us |
Why we phrase it this carefully
Because certified and listed are different words, and a parent comparing toys deserves the uninflated version. The two are easy to blur on a product page. We would rather you know exactly where we stand, including the part that is unfinished, than round up. When our COPPA certification completes, we will say so in those words, and you will be able to check it.
How to check any toy's seal claim in two minutes
This works on us and on anyone else. Go to kidsafe.com and look for the product or company in their listings. If a toy shows the seal, the claim should trace back to a live entry there. Note which seal the entry actually shows, because a store page can say one thing while the program's records say another. And if you cannot find the product at all, ask the company for a link to their listing before you trust the badge.
The same habit applies to every safety claim on every toy site, ours included. A claim you can verify at the source beats a badge image every time.
One last caveat. Seal programs update their rules and their member lists, and our own status will change when the COPPA certification finishes. This post reflects what is true as we write it. For the current version, check kidsafe.com and our product page directly.