Online Poker Giant Takes a Stand Against Ranking Sites

New Policy Creates Shockwaves in the Industry

PokerStars recently put its foot down on the online poker ranking sites, and the poker community noticed.

Poker ranking/tracking sites have been attracting quite a following over the past year by giving users access to leader boards, tournament results, and individual player winnings. Some sites went as far as giving their users the ability to look up the ROI (return on investment), net winnings, in-the-money finish percentages, and other profitability indicators for every player on PokerStars and other sites. While the sites certainly could be used for entertainment or for tracking personal progress, they also could be used to tailor your playing-style versus a particular opponent, or even to ridicule opponents with poor stats.

It was the unmitigated access to profitability statistics that got some players up in arms. Enough concerned players contacted PokerStars about their privacy being breached that the site decided to do something about it. The site sent what was essentially a cease-and-desist letter to all of the major ranking sites, which theoretically could kill off what had become, for better or worse, a thriving industry in poker data.



The PokerStars Mandate

In a message sent out to all of the major online poker ranking/leader board sites, dated Aug. 1, PokerStars wrote the following:


To ensure player privacy regarding certain player statistics and financial information gathered by websites (hereinafter “Service Operator”) that collect and organize PokerStars players’ results by various means, PokerStars has devised the following rules with which such Service Operators must comply:

No player profitability data (i.e. ROI, net profit, etc.) may be displayed on any player unless the player has explicitly opted into such display by transferring $0.03 to a prominently published PokerStars account owned by the Service Operator. This request must be acknowledged by the Service Operator by sending the $0.03 back to the player as confirmation within a reasonable time frame not to exceed five days.
Any player may choose to completely opt out of having any information about them displayed on the Service. To do so, the player will transfer $0.01 to the service operator’s PokerStars account. This request must be acknowledged by the Service Operator by sending the $0.01 back to the player as confirmation within a reasonable time frame not to exceed five days. Note that the amount here is different, in order to distinguish an opt-out request from an opt-in request.
The use of the “transfer from user to Service and back again” method for opt-in and opt-out is required. This method permits these requests to be handled privately and securely without the disclosure of the player’s e-mail address, real name, or other private information. Only the player’s PokerStars user ID is required.
Both the opt-in and opt-out options must be prominently displayed on the main/front page of the Service (at a minimum, a normal-sized link on the front page to a more complete description elsewhere).
If the service’s operation predates the establishment of these guidelines (December 2006), there shall be no “grandfather clause” for existing data. One hundred percent of historical profitability data must be removed from view until such time as a player explicitly opts in as above.

Any Service Operator found to be in violation of these rules risks having their access to PokerStars’ game client restricted and/or the service impeded, including, but not limited to, the warning of players who access the Service while the PokerStars client is open.



PokerStars Discusses New Policy

Card Player contacted Stephen Winters, manager of PokerStars game security, to obtain more information on the new policy:


Card Player: Why has PokerStars decided to take these steps?

Stephen Winters: Over the past year or more, we have been collating feedback from our players via e-mail and public forums on the subject of game-play-data privacy. The view of a large number of our players is that they do not wish their ROI and profitability to be displayed in a public or subscription-based website.

PokerStars management respects the privacy of its players and feels strongly that this data should only be available for players who have explicitly expressed a wish for it to be displayed. If a player wishes to allow his full data set to be displayed, he has to opt into that particular service.

We have made the “default setting” of our data policy such that only tournament cashes can be displayed for any player. This display of player’s tournament cashes would not reveal any ROI or profitability data. If a player does not even wish this information to be displayed, we are also allowing him to opt out completely.

The right to privacy protection applies to all players, whether losing or winning, and there are many valid reasons for players not wanting their information to be shown publicly.

CP: Is there any merit to the rumors that you plan to suspend or cancel players’ accounts for those who are found visiting banned sites?

SW: PokerStars never closes a player’s account without just cause and due process. After a soon-to-be-communicated “grace period” in which players will have time to become aware of the new policy, we will begin sending warnings to players who visit the prohibited sites. Only after a well-defined series of warnings would we take the more extreme measure of giving a player a timeout or closing his account. This would be done only after it was clear that the player was aware of the policy and still refused to comply.

CP: What do you say to the growing population of players who use those sites’ services, whether for pure entertainment or for an “edge” of some sort?

SW: PokerStars policy on data aggregation is clear. We allow players to track their own play and those of others whom they have played against, by analysis of their own hard drive hand histories. We consider there to be a potentially unfair advantage in favor of players using sites that store such data in a shared database, regardless of whether such data is used for an “edge” or for pure entertainment.

CP: Are there likely to be more or fewer restrictions as time goes on.

SW: We will always strive to maintain the privacy of those players who wish their game statistics to remain private. There will be no special exceptions made and the rules will be enforced equally across the board.

We will, however, continue to monitor player feedback and we may amend this or other policies when the need arises.

CP: When you say, “Any player may choose to completely opt out of having any information about them displayed on the service,” does that mean that, for instance, if the winner of the Sunday Million opted out, the tournament results page for that tournament would have to have a conspicuously blank space in the No. 1 spot?

SW: To clarify, this policy applies to tracking sites, not to news reporting sites.

If player “abc123” wins the Sunday Million, this will obviously be reported in various poker news sites, regardless of the opt-out status of that player. However, if “abc123” has opted out and doesn’t want his stats to be tracked by “TrackOnlinePlay.com” site, then his name and results will not be shown on that site, including his Sunday Million win.

CP: You say that PokerStars will “[Warn] players who access the [a] service while the PokerStars client is open.” How do you respond to players concerned that PokerStars will start to monitor their actions online?

SW: If any site does not want to work with us in providing the required privacy to our players, then we will have to take action to prevent or hinder their operations.
Such action may be in the form of a warning to players who access such websites whilst playing at PokerStars. Alternative action might involve PokerStars identifying, then hindering or closing down the sources of such websites’ data-collection facilities.

From the Players’ Mouths

Scott Fischman, a player who has made a name for himself both live and online (playing as “emptyseat88”), tends to agree with PokerStars’ clampdown.

“I don’t think that people should be able to see all of my specific earnings data,” Fischman said. “This is my job; you don’t go around asking people how much they make at work.”

The poker industry, as a whole, also tends to suffer as a result of the ranking sites, according to Fischman.

“As far as the poker community is concerned, I think that, overall, the poker sites are being hurt by sites like these, because players are being shown the cold hard facts that they are losing players, and they may stop playing due to embarrassment or just quit because they realize it isn’t a good thing for them,” he said. “Most poker players who lose money are either playing recreationally and don’t mind losing, or are somehow rationalizing their losses to themselves in a way that keeps their interest in the game alive. Once they get a look at how bad they are actually doing, they may throw in the towel.”

Poker pro Jordan “iMsoLucky0” Morgan said the policy was “a long time coming,” and that it was a privacy issue that needed to be dealt with. He was not, however, keen on the issue of PokerStars monitoring its players' Internet browsing.

“They’re protecting some people’s privacy by invading the privacy of others,” he said. “That seems like a problem. The sites definitely have the technology to monitor what you’re doing on your computer. If they want to let people have their privacy, they should really let people have their privacy.”



What it All Means
It will be an uphill battle for sites with ranking systems, like Card Player's Online Player of the Year. Results information is now harder to obtain, and with the threat of notable players opting out of the system completely, results also may be less reliable.

Poker pro Kevin “BeL0WaB0Ve” Saul told Card Player that he has opted into such sites, as he has “nothing to hide.” Whether or not his actions will be typical of most poker players or only a select few remains to be seen. In Saul's case, people will be able to readily access his ROI and other profitability statistics; in the more extreme case of a player opting out, his existence will essentially be stripped from every poker database out there.

courtesy Card Player Magazine

News Added: 21 September, 2007

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