Hello Mr. D. Bag,
PokerStars has been listening to recent player feedback regarding
SharkScope.
SharkScope remains a prohibited service while playing at PokerStars, but
as a result of player feedback, we have now reconsidered the methods that
we intend to use to prevent players from accessing unauthorised
profitability and ROI data.
We want to limit the amount of information that third party results
websites can publish because of our strong commitment to upholding the
integrity of our games.
We oppose websites publishing player profitability data by default for two
key reasons:
Firstly, many of our players simply don't want their ROI information to be
publicly available. They have a right to privacy of this information.
Secondly, it gives an unfair advantage to those players who are able to
obtain ROI data about players who have not consented for their information
to be shown.
We have been working with various sites that currently display player
profitability data and the vast majority of those sites have agreed to
modify the default settings for the display of player data. Sites who are
working with us have agreed that profitability data will only be available
on players who have themselves specifically opted in, thus giving their
consent for their profitability data to be displayed on that service. The
default setting will be that tournament cashes only will be displayed. The
sites who intend to comply with our data policy also agree to allow
players to opt out totally from their service, so that zero information
will be displayed about them. SharkScope has refused to remove player
profitability and ROI data by default and therefore their service now
falls into the category of prohibited for use in conjunction with the
PokerStars Client.
However, we understand that players have expressed concerns regarding our
recent detection methods, and we recognise that we made a mistake.
Consequently, we will explain the error, and correct it.
We detected players who visited the SharkScope website by having the
PokerStars Client monitor active network connections using built in
Windows functions for that purpose. The data returned by this function is
similar to that which is returned by the Windows accessory
called 'Netstat'. A periodic query to Windows determined whether the
SharkScope IP was being accessed. This was a YES/NO query, purely
regarding access to the specific SharkScope IP address. If a connection
to the SharkScope IP was detected, this fact and only this fact was sent
back to the PokerStars server. We then sent warning emails to players who
had accessed SharkScope in conjunction with the PokerStars Client.
This technique ensured that players accessing the SharkScope website were
detected without breaching their right to privacy. At no stage was a
player's internet browsing history ever queried, or transmitted from the
PokerStars Client to the PokerStars Server.
However, despite our assertion above, we understand that some players are
unhappy with the perception that PokerStars monitors their internet
browsing habits. Consequently, even though PokerStars does not monitor
players' internet browsing habits, we have decided to disable and
completely remove this feature of our software to avoid even the slightest
perception of privacy breaches. After all, our policy to prevent Third
Party Websites publishing player profitability data by default was based
on our strong belief that players have a right to privacy.
We also accept that some players who received a warning did not visit the
SharkScope website with the expressed intent to break PokerStars rules. We
would like to apologise to those players. It is SharkScope who should bear
the greater burden for breaking PokerStars' rules and our enforcement
emphasis will now focus on them.
To confirm, SharkScope will remain a prohibited service, for the reasons
listed above. We ask that players do not use it at all in conjunction with
PokerStars - the website, the HUD, or any other future tools that they
might develop.
However, we will divert our development efforts to limiting the
effectiveness of SharkScope by preventing their ability - or the ability
of certain other datamining sites - to extract the data from the
PokerStars client without either the permission of PokerStars, or the
players concerned.
We believe that this policy correction will deliver on our twin
commitments of listening to players who have overwhelmingly asked us to
prevent SharkScope from publishing their private information, but also
listening to players who were concerned about their browsing privacy.
As always, we welcome feedback on this policy, so please email us anytime
at
support@pokerstars.com. We will work hard to deliver the best possible
poker games, with the highest standards of integrity now and into the
future.
Regards,
PokerStars Game Security.
cliff notes: they made a mistake about scanning peoples internet browsers and wont do it anymore.
