The Party Network T&C shuffle (Long)

[Orpheus]

First, let me make it clear that this is not paranoid conspiracy theory thread. I'm just creating this thread as a one-stop discussion point for a loophole I reported some time ago, in a post that is now buried in the bowels of a forgotten thread. It seems to me that this issue will crop up rep[eatedly in the future, but that Party won't directly report it to the players because it might upset them, or might even be open to challenge. It could, however, be a plausible sounding justification for many types of actions, to their regulators behind closed doors.

I'm not freaking out. I intend to continue playing at Party for the foreseeable future, because it is fun and profitable for me. I simply feel that this "loophole" needs to be laid bare. I am not a lawyer, nor am I familiar with the laws of each of the possibly relevant jurisdictions, but I think the problem is clear in plain English.

A PARABLE (feel free to skip)
I feel the loophole needs a name, if we are to discuss it whenever it comes up. I'm sure some clever reader will come up with a better name, but for now, I call it the "Uranistani Law Problem" or simply "ULP!".

Imagine that you apply for an ultra-black secret agent job so secret that the application states that any misstatement on the form will be considered an attempt to infiltrate the organization, with a penalty up to and including secret executions. Naturally, this is one form you'll want to fill out withthe utmost care, but being the kind of dashing model of perfection that this job demands, you aren't worried.

Except... well there's an innocuous question halfway down the page, asking if you have ever broken any law of any of the Alliance nations that is punishable by execution. (unsurprisingly, being hush-hush, they don't tell you what Alliance they're talking about, or name its member nations)

"No problem," you think, "I have led an upstanding life at home, and I have never been abroad, so this can't possibly apply to me". A week later, you are facing a firing squad. You see, it turns out that Uranistan is a member nation, and their laws state that playing poker on any computer network that reaches into their country is an "immoral treason against the nation". They also consider viewing man-on-pig porn a crime against God, cross-dressing a crime against Nature, and wearing white after Labor day a crime against fashion -- all death penalty offenses-- and since God, Nature and Fashion are everywhere, their laws says their fatwah applies worldwide. As it turns out, these four proscribed actions are your major recreations.

That's the Uranistan Law Paradox. You didn't know what kind of alliance they were talking about, much less its membership -- and you certainly wouldn't know all the laws of all those nations. Yet you *did* agree that if you made a false statement, so -ULP!- you're dead!

The Real World: Party Network
Since PartyPoker acquired PokerNOW [to pick a landmark event], several Parety site actions have had various 2+2'ers up at arms over "unjustifiable acts". However a loophole in the T&C of a growing number of Party Network affiliates opens the door for any/all of them to enforce rules that you have never seen or heard of, with no prior warning.

As I noted in a long buried post. Provision aking to the ULP! occur in many PAerty affiliate T&C's. The example I cited was in the Empire T&C:

[ QUOTE ]

11. Shared Games, Table and Database Platform.
Company reserves the right to run and utilize shared games, table, server and database platform ("Shared Game/Table Platform") which enables players from EmpirePoker.com to play with players coming into the games, tables and tournaments from other sites and brands to the same Shared Game/Table Platform so that the players may be pooled into common games and/or tables regardless of which site or brand they may have entered from. In such event, you agree that you may be pooled into these common games and/or tables, at Company's sole discretion, and that to the extent that you breach the terms and conditions of one site or brand, Company may have you blocked, in part or full, from the entire system so that you may not play through any site or brand. Further your play patterns, personal data, depositing limits and history may be calculated and shared across the system to counter fraud, over-depositing and other matters, as Company shall decide in its sole discretion. [Emphasis mine]

[/ QUOTE ]
Note that they don't tell you the rules you have to follow. They don't even tell you the name of the "Shared Game/Table Platform", or list the other sites whose rules you must follow. Even the most diligent and responsible new poker player would have to do considerable independent research to find out what these unmentioned rules might be -- and they could never be sure they had a complete list. After all, Empire may not limit themselves to the Party Network, or PartyPoker might spin off a subsidiary (PureThinkingPoker.com) tomorrow, whose T&C bans playing under the influence of alcohol, drugs, women, or strong emotions, and mandates completion of a reading list of five top poker texts before playing on their site. And since they are on a network shared with Empire, EP can, at its sole discretion choose to ban you for not following this hidden law of another site--even if, that site doesn't advertise and has no members yet.

I'm not saying that Party has malicious intent, but their lawyers would be shoddy indeed to not be aware of it, and many companies would consider it only prudent to secure every possible advantage.

A Current Example
Since I don't want to re-open old wounds, let me cite an example from todays front page.

In just the past two months, PartyPoker has collaborated with the authors of PokerTracker to ACTIVELY HELP PT come out with a PT program for Omaha, which didn't even exist until March, and was in free beta until a few weeks ago. Soon after this collaboration, however, they acquired PokerNOW, and a few weeks after that, PokerNOW's T&C suddenly included a more strongly worded "cheating software" provision than any Party site had previously used.

[ QUOTE ]
7. Anti-Cheating Software.
We are committed to detecting and preventing software programs which are designed to enable any artificial intelligence ("AI Software") to play on our site such as, but not limited to, odds-calculators, hand-strength calculators, opponent-profiling or anything else that enables you to have an unfair advantage using such software. You acknowledge that the Company will take measures to detect and prevent the use of such programs and AI Software using methods including but not limited to screen scraping or reading the list of currently running programs on a player’s computer and you agree not to use any AI Software and/or any such programs."

[/ QUOTE ]

Many people contacted PokerNOW, asking if Poker Tracker was allowable. Several were explicitly told "yes". Others contacted their favorite Party affiliate, and got the same answer.

That was just a few weeks ago, but today, we're hearing that they've done an unannounced about-face: it ISN'T okay with PokerNOW -- and that means that many other Party affiliates, that have recently added provisions like Empire's, can at their own private discretion perople who asked for, and got, specific approval for the programs they used.

Sure, WE know about it now -those of us who read 2+2 today, anyway- but the community of people using PT (and countless other programs relating to online poker play) reaches far beyond 2+2, and NONE of the sites have yet made a public announcement to their player pool that their view of PT has changed or issued any list of currently (dis)allowed software. They have issued warnings to players they've "caught", and won't reply when asked exactly what program triggered the warning.

Who knows when warnings will be replaced by enforcement? And when it does, any other Party site can -selectively, at their discretion- use the PokerNOW policy to ban anyone they don't like. Remember, we never found any hard criterion for the Emprire bannings. Some people were banned while others, doing the same easily traceable activities, weren't. It's just as easy -easier, really- for a computer to scan a database of transactions and return ALL matching players instead of just a random sampling. This selective banning is worrisome.

Think you're safe, because you don't do anything 'fancy'? Some months ago, some 2+2'ers posted evidence that NOTEPAD, WORDPAD, MS-WORD and CALCULATOR were among the programs being flagged by Party's servers. Specifically, lines like the following were found in packets being sent back to various Party servers:

INFO.POKER_BOT=Inspector,Notepad,Calculator,Wordpa d
INFO.PBDL=pokercalc.com,texasholdem-poker.com,twodimes.net
INFO.PBKPL=WINWORD.EXE

You can be as optimistic as you wish (I am), but surely Party knew in advance that several of these programs are quite common and generally innocuous. Personally, though I can understand a possible motivation for reporting that a player has visited some of the sites listed above (they may have poker tools, among their more innocuous offerings) I think there is a general concensus that reporting the websites I visit is not just edging the line into spyware, it's leaping the line and mooning us from the other side. Will 2+2 (or more likely, BW) be the next flag for an "undesirable advantage player"? Hasn't the international computing community solidly decided that a program that silently reports what other websites you visit is wrong, even if it can arguably be defended by some line in the T&C, and even if a company really, really wants to know "for a good reason"?

Taking a break while writins a term paper, memo or grocery list in Notepad or Word. Doing math in Calculator? Cheater! We've seen the support responses: "We won't listen to any explanations. The decision is irreversible. Goodbye."

I think they are permitting themselves a very broad license, and I don't think that the spotty broad-brush strategies suggested by a great deal of evidence in other threads is good for Party itself.

As I said, I'm not panicking, or threatening to leave Party, but I really don't care for some of these trends, and I do note that we have a narrow window of opportunity (before the IPO) when public pressure and negative publicity can have a special impact.

What Can We Do?
Dang if I know. Suggestions? Plans? Schemes and plots?

But please - no conspiracies! Let's limit ourselves to reasoned, substantiated points where possible.