Stars players using Sharkscope BEWARE

[justdonkme]

I logged into stars this afternoon, then opened up Sharkscope, and immediately received a message from support stating they detected me using me sharkscope.com and to check my email where I found this message.


Hello,

It has come to our attention at PokerStars that you are accessing a prohibited
third party website known as "SharkScope.com" during your game play.

Perhaps you were unaware that the use of SharkScope was against the rules, but
use of this software under any circumstances is against our terms of service.
Those terms of service are located here:



Among them are these terms:

5.4. EXTERNAL PLAYER ASSISTANCE PROGRAMS (EPA). PokerStars
prohibits those External Player Assistance Programs ("EPA
Programs") which are designed to provide an "Unfair Advantage"
to players. PokerStars defines "External" to mean computer
software...and non-software-based databases or profiles (e.g.
web sites and subscription services). PokerStars defines
an "Unfair Advantage" as any instance in which a User
accesses or compiles information on other players beyond
that which the User has personally observed through the
User's own game play. We encourage you to read our
Prohibited Online Software FAQ at:



As SharkScope provides statistics based upon a large database of hands in which
you did not play, it is considered to be in violation of this policy.

We are aware that many who receive this alert do not subscribe to SharkScope,
but do use the 5 free daily lookups to check their own stats. We do not
distinguish between such uses, however, and even this use of SharkScope is
prohibited.

For a brief transition period, we will only be issuing this alert. We ask that
you stop using SharkScope immediately. On November 15, we will begin closing
the accounts of players found to be using SharkScope despite having received and
acknowledged a warning.

Thank you for your cooperation in this matter, and for helping us to keep
PokerStars' games a fair and level playing field for all players.

Best Regards,

PokerStars Game Security


Whoa... Now the question I have is, can you access sharkscope WITHOUT being logged into stars or will they know still? I really don't want my account closed due to a visit to sharkscope. Has anyone else seen this warning yet or did it just start today?

[jillaj]

Stars just officially banned it in the last couple of days. Stars can't tell what you have open if the client isn't open.

[Nikita]

This really sucks. I use Sharkscope all the time since I mainly play SNGs. I also like to keep track of my own stats on there.

[Talking Poker]

Interesting.

You can still use it (for tracking purposes or whatever) when you don't have Stars open, and you could always use it on another computer like a laptop while you play.

I don't really play on Stars much, but I do play on FT and do use it there, so hopefully FT doesn't follow suit here.

[JDMcNugent7]

how the hell can they tell what websites ur on while ur playing?

that shouldnt be allowed

[de-coder]

I expect that the PS software puts a hook into IE to detect what sites it's viewing - use Firefox, it appears to be unaffected.

I played at a table and used sharkscope to check on a few players (just the free version I don't subscribe) with Firefox and didn't receive any emails or warnings.

You guys and your IE...

[Robbie Robb]

I figured it would hook into netstat/have a built in netstat or something and look for connections to the sharkscope IP address. Of course using a proxy should get around that I would think.

I would think they'd be able to detect Firefox usage too. Of course, Firefox's (and IE's) new privacy mode may resolve that as well depending on the method they use.

Oh - and ignore these smileys. Alex was rather insistent I click on the "funny faces":

[Talking Poker]

LOL.

P.S. Chrome FTW!

[jillaj]

Someone received this email today and it looks like Stars changed their position. For the tldr crowd Stars is now not monitoring whether you are looking at Sharkscope and instead going after Sharkscope. So it looks like people can use it now even though they ask you not to.


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 . 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.

[Talking Poker]

Seems reasonable.

[Kurn]

Sharkscope has been a banned program on 'Stars for at least the past year.