My child accessed YouTube and the internet through an app I approved...
Hi Gabb. Really appreciate what you guys have done for my family so far but I'm a little concerned. My son has a Gabb phone 3 with the "advanced" type plan to get apps. I recently enabled an app for him from my account online. He downloaded the app just fine on his phone but I was really disappointed when he came to me and showed me a YouTube video. He had accessed it through the app I enabled. I thought these devices were free of the internet and social media....
Best Answer
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Hi Elizabeth!. First off, sorry to hear that you guys had that experience with YouTube access. Our number one goal is to provide parents and kids with the right tech for their situation. Safety is the number one priority! We run all of the 3rd party apps inside the Gabb App Store through an approval process but with any app that is not developed by Gabb, there are inherent risks involved. We recognize this and want to let you as the parent choose what is best for your situation!
Here is the message in place that gets accepted when enabling any 3rd party app via gabb.com/account:
The biggest thing is that parents can choose to disable any 3rd-party apps that are concerning or problematic for their child.
We want to empower and team up with you as the parent. Enabling you to choose what is best for your situation! We know how important and complicated navigating this digital world with kids can be. We really do care and want to make it simple, give parents options, and help as best as we can. We fully support you to disable this app that might be a risk or not a good fit.
- Reagan
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Oh, okay! I see what you're doing. I actually really like that you are giving parents the ability to choose apps that work best for us. I guess I'll make sure to check out the app with my son first. Thanks for this info!
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I am extremely disappointed and frustrated that after using the Greenlight app for a few weeks it is only now that I have discovered through the 'choose a charity' section that my children can access the internet on a GABB phone. I appreciate that you have a disclaimer on the app description on that says there are no parental controls but I do I feel duped and misled, as I naively assumed that a phone company whose purpose is keeping kids OFF the internet would not partner with companies who have secret backdoors to the internet hidden within their app.. Why it is incumbent upon the parent to hopefully discover this dangerous back door on one of your approved apps instead of your app vetting team?
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Hi @rmak ,
We are so sorry to hear about the experience your son had with the Greenlight App on the Gabb Phone 3 Pro. With any 3rd party app, there are risks involved, which we state within our on our website. We are unable to control what is shown within the 3rd party apps as they are ran by the creators of those apps. However, we do safety checks before approving any app to the app library for parents to add.
Parents are able to enable and disable apps as they please for their child's device. We make our decisions based on the most requested apps by parents and if there are apps that some parents may not approve of, they do not need to enable them for their child. We want parents to feel empowered to help make this device as locked down or as flexible as they are needing for their family.-Jayden
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