Pokemon GO Update: Niantic Explains Why They Banned Maps And Trackers

Niantic has released the first major update to the game, banning the Pokemon GO  mappers and tracking services. Despite bringing a whole host of new features, the rollout has gone terribly - with many people threatening to quit.

Earlier this month, Niantic began banning users that it said were "taking unfair advantage of and abusing" the game. This included users who were using apps that display nearby Pokemon on a map.

Why the ban?

According to a report by AdWeek, John Hanke, CEO of Niantic stated why they've been issuing bans and shutting down access to third-party services, "Some players may not have realized that some add-on map apps do more than just show you nearby Pokémon. Each end-user app can be used as a collection tool by the app creator, invisibly collecting and forwarding data to the app creator with or without the knowledge of the end user. These apps can have an effect similar to DDoS (distributed denial of service) attacks on our servers."

While it's an easy enough assumption that anybody using a mapping app could be scraping data from the game, that was not the only issue. Players using mapping apps did so in great numbers, and those apps sent significantly more requests per user to Pokemon GO's servers than the official game. This wound up mirroring a distributed denial of service attack  that end up in taking it the server down.

These attacks usually involve botnets.Thus, for the sake of safety and to help keep the servers alive for legitimate players, just about everybody using any kind of third-party app ended up banned.Niantic began a campaign not long after the game's launch to drop the ban-hammer on all cheaters, from GPS spoofers and botters to hackers that were using third-party apps to scrape data from the servers, reports Android Headlines.

How To 'Un-Ban"

On the official Pokemon GO blog, Niantic CEO John Hanke announced that players who wound up banned for using mapping apps, but otherwise played legitimately, would find their bans lifted. Users can apply on the Official website to lift the Ban. Accounts that were made automatically or engaged in other kinds of cheating, like auto-battling or GPS spoofing, would remain banned.

Additionally, Niantic says that continued use of unauthorized services may result in permanent bans in the future. Hanke commented,"Our main priority is to provide a fair, fun and legitimate experience for all players, so aggressive banning will continue to occur for players who engage in these kinds of activities."