Most companies basically use Iovation as a blacklist for people who were known to have made chargebacks or whatever. Dunno if that's what UP was using them for.

yes, to my understanding it's essentially device recognition. not sure how they could be doing age/id verification. surely that would be through experian/transunion or whoever.

as one of the previous posts in this thread alluded to, iovation are pretty ubiqutuous in alternative finance. i was telling my co-worker about this UB stuff on the train today and an hour later we were in a meeting where the client mentioned them, heh.

if any really good non-sensationalist articles about the UB/iovation connection come out i'd be interested so i can forward to people i work with.

FYP

Shouldn't be involved in illegal online poker either IMO.

Seems like Iovation is about to be kicked out the door from Nevada:
http://www.reviewjournal.com/busines...ionship-probed

NJ is next, where CAMS has applied for a license. I have sent the info to the NJ Division of Gaming Enforcement and the NJ Casino Control Commission. If Iovation gets rejected there as well, I think they'll pretty much be blacklisted in any US gaming jurisdiction.

You would've thought UP would have been ontop of their subs post BF. Lets hope they do a THOROUGH vetting of all of their umbrella companies connected to online poker.

It took two weeks for the wheels to start to fall off in connection to shady business partners they have chosen to "open" the online market with.

Thank you to those who inquired, spoke up and posted the connections so far. I won't be depositing anytime soon on UP though, but thanks for speaking up. It does matter to us.

Truly great and significant work!!

Oh jfc, read the comment at the bottom of the article... Fk rig tard.

This is fantastic! Now any owners of Iovation (I understand Phil Hellmuth may be one according to Travis Makar) should be banned from all Nevada casinos.

This is a huge stretch. I would be happy with all the hard work of these poker players just crippling iovation and Pierson.

There are some LOL quotes on Iovation's site:

From their recruiting:

Join a Team of Global Good-Guys

Think of us as the CIA meets Justice League—but we're watching over an entire world of computers.


From Greg Pierson's profile:

A serial entrepreneur, Greg has a strong passion for developing leading fraud fighting solutions that make the Internet a safer place to do business and communicate

It is a huge stretch but it would be great to see.

Awesome. And thanks to everyone for all the hard work you guys have done.

Thats more like it.

Does it really say that? I guess it makes sense if he thinks there are a ton of 12 year olds who are super (hah) good with computers in the manner necessary and that he somehow has a chance at enlisting (hah again - hiring more normal term) them.

Its been changed.

Join a Team of Global Good-Guys

Think of us as the CIA meets Justice League—but we're watching over an entire world of computers.

Yes, I couldn't make that up.

https://www.iovation.com/careers

I feel like working at Iovation would be like working at one of those J.G. Wentworth style places. Or maybe, better yet, like, a Binder & Binder call center.

Reading this thread gave me indigestion. I also got that slight feeling of having to puke because of the sheer madness of it all and how many people were affected.

...and I have a massive headache to boot after reading the run on sentences that Makar used to litter this thread.

But I have a suggestion for everyone: Just play live.

The problem with this is that (so I'm told) iovation's product works really well. If a company who relied on the service simply removed it, it could lose a LOT of money as a result of increased fraud. I doubt anyone is going to do this until they have implemented an alternative - it would be a serious mistake.

A better solution is to find an alternative vendor, who have a clean history and impeccable reputation, and demand that poker sites switch to them. Are there any such alternatives?

They have a couple of patents, 7,526,796 and 7,272,728. A company could hire me or another patent lawyer to analyze them and assist the company in designing around. Maybe CAMS/Verifi have a clue, maybe they don't.

i've heard these guys are good :

http://noiretech.com/

admittedly i've only ever heard them mentioned by one person.

iovation technology has been gathering device reputation data since 2002, first at UB, then at a bunch of Central American sportsbooks and then at Full Tilt Poker. The only company that could come anywhere close to the qualitative information in the gambling sector is PokerStars and they are not going to spinout their own version of iovation.

The unfortunate truth is this, players may cause enough uproar to get iovation looked at, but when the lawyers get to wrangling it is not going to be cut and dried since nobody was ever prosecuted and players were remunerated to some degree. The company has a reputation problem but Pierson's day one goal is to grow the business and sell it off via M&A. Internally, they are likely evaluating options. Rebranding ala Andersen to Accenture isn't probable because the same people are still there.

If I have to guess, I would bet the process of selling the company is now on an escalated timetable so that Pierson and the other UB founders can gracefully exit the management suite and take their place in the 1%. To a prospective buyer, there might be some newfound price cutting based on this situation, but they will arrive at the conclusion that iovation's gambling sector data is deep and valuable in a coming legal poker world.

The other side of the coin is the company has not done a very good job in cross selling into more legitimate business. And maybe the larger issue has to do with the viability of device reputation itself. Pierson use to make sure to mention they are not concerned with account information/details in his interviews, but tying accounts to devices is what makes the data so valuable. Here's why.

I buy a computer in 2002 and cheat players using a tool to see everyone's cards. By 2005, that computer is old and I need a new laptop. Device reputation is more than a box, it probably includes routers and modems between the user and the Internet. But even these get replaced fairly quickly. Where iovation has stickiness is that when I login to my old poker accounts with my new laptop, all the negative associations come with me and my new gear is added to the iovation database. So now its 2013 and I may be living in Aruba and haven't cheated anyone for years but iovation keeps kicking me off the sportsbetting site I am trying to sign up with.

There are enormous privacy issues in play and so far iovation has skirted areas that credit reporting bureaus are subject to.

Confirmed top Google News ranking for Iovation.

http://www.reviewjournal.com/busines...ionship-probed