It appears the fight will be short-lived. PokerTableRatings has announced that it has removed all profiles of PokerStars players. The decision comes after the poker room publicly launched a legal battle against the data-mining service earlier this week.
“We will fully adhere to the cease and desist notice by Stars, though we do not believe that we are a disservice to the online poker community,” read the announcement on the official PTR blog earlier today.
Any searches for PokerStars players now returns the message: “Stars has requested that you not view your poker player profile on PokerTableRatings.com. Please contact Stars support if you would like to see your profile made public again on PTR.” The site has also removed the ability to purchase Stars hand histories in bulk.
On Monday, PokerStars launched a legal battle against the data service, sending cease and desist letters and assuring that its legal moves were not just an “idle threat.”
Earlier on Wednesday, PokerStars claimed a small victory, when PTR briefly went offline while switching name-servers. PokerStars asserts this was due to an ISP complying with its cease and desist demands.
In a statement sent to pokerfuse, Chief Legal Counsel for PokerStars stated that the legal moves were made only after, “repeated unsuccessful attempts to ensure PTR only supplies information on players who have opted in and agreed to have their playing statistics made public” and that “PTR never took up this offer.”
However, in the statement today PTR painted a different picture, stating that they have “been unable to gain communication with Stars during this time” and lamented that “it has come to a hostile dissolution of service for this brand. They have taken formal action against us and we will comply with their demands and have the brand removed from the site.”
Just under a year ago, the founders and management of MarketZero—the original team behind PokerTableRatings—were hired by Zynga Poker. “Since day 1 [of the new management] we have been exploring ways to compromise with brands in order to create positive relationships for the betterment of the community,” the statement continued.
The statement concludes: “We still fully believe in our product and will continue to introduce new and exciting features to our customers. We have been actively developing new tools that will give more control and ownership of profiles to their respective players so that PTR can be a service that every poker player would be proud to use. The latest events, though a disruption in our plans, do not derail them. Our team is committed to evolving PTR even further in order to continue to provide hundreds of thousands of members of the online poker community with valued services and tools to keep the game of poker fun and engaging for all.”
