Sharkscope and OPR, two data-mining sites that track MTT and SNG hands followed suit with PokerTableRatings, and removed the hands and statistics of PokerStars players from their website.
As Rakerace.com reported in April, PokerStars took legal action against PokerTableRatings (PTR) for hurting intellecutal property laws and room regulations. As a first step, PS sent PTR an official letter demanding that PokerTableRatings put an end to their sharing information on PS players. PS had announced that a group of lawyers were already working on analyzing the situation, and declared their determination towards their goal.
As a follow-up, PokerTableRatings quickly responded and agreed to PokerStars’ terms and will only publish players statistics as per the explicit request of the players. A similar data-mining site Poker-Edge removed PokerStars data from their website on 25 April, and will not track them anymore. On 11 May, two other major data-miner sites, Sharkscope and Official Poker Rankings (OPR) decided to follow suit; they reported they will only disclose those players’ data, who request their information to be public.
However the two sites did not sell poker hand histories as the cash game trackers like PokerTableRatings, many players complained that their ROIs are public on the websites, facilitating an unfair edge on them by the users of the site. It was possible to block individual statistics, but now all PokerStars players’ data are blocked by default and the players themselves have to request the publication of their data.
PokerStars no longer lists the above sites on their blacklist.
