Just a week after forbidding its players from using the datamining site SharkScope.com, PokerStars is reconsidering its methods to prevent users from accessing the popular program. After receiving numerous e-mails from players that received warnings from PokerStars for logging onto SharkScope while having the PokerStars client open (and not even playing), the online poker site made the decision to change its rules regarding the third-party database site.
SharkScope is a database website for online poker Sit-and-Gos that has tracked over 180 million tournaments across 17 networks. The website independently tracks the results of tournaments, which is considered to be information available to the public. Sharkscope allows five free player searches per day to users and offers a subscription service for those wanting a larger number of searches. The use of the database was allowed by all sites up until recently, when PokerStars added it to its list of prohibited programs.
PokerStars opposes the distribution of a player’s profitability data for two key reasons. First, many of its players don’t want their Return on Investment (ROI) information to be publicly available. The site feels the player has a right of privacy to this information. Secondly, it gives an unfair advantage to those players that are able to get hold of ROI data about players that have not granted permission for their information to be displayed to the public.
PokerStars has been working with third-party database sites for a long time to make sure that its players’ privacy isn’t breached. Many have agreed to display player data for only those who have specifically given their consent for their data to be available, but SharkScope refused to remove player statistics. Therefore PokerStars stepped in by monitoring the Sharkscope internet protocol (IP) to find out which players were using the site. The attempt to obstruct a violation of player privacy resulted in a privacy breach itself.
The site feels it made an error, however, and made a statement regarding its recent decision:
“We understand that players have expressed concerns regarding our recent detection methods, and we recognize 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.”
Based on the feedback from players, PokerStars elected to disable the detection feature from its software. Sharkscope will remain a prohibited service on PokerStars, but only while players are involved in a game on the site. Meanwhile, PokerStars will continue to attempt to limit datamining sites from gathering player information without permission of PokerStars or its players.