A new achievement in Niantic’s fight against fraudsters in Pokémon GO. The work on the trackers Pokésearch and PokéSensor has now been completed.
In recent weeks and months, the Pokémon GO team has made great efforts to exclude fraudsters from the game. This year, there have already been several waves of bans targeting various types of fraudsters and cheaters. And the measures against fraudsters do not stop here.
Two well-known Pokémon GO trackers have now received cease and desist orders and had to shut down their services.
Pokémon GO Scanner Ban
Some trainers use various third-party services to gain an advantage in Pokémon GO. Scanners and tracking services display on maps where Pokémon are located near you. These services are available as websites accessible via a browser or as apps.
Pokésearch and PokéSensor are two of these scanning services that were very well known and frequently used among players. The emphasis is on the word “were“, because there have now been cease and desist orders that stop these services.
According to initial findings, these orders do not come from Niantic itself, but from the Pokémon Company. They sent the letters to the respective operators a few days ago and did not cite copyright issues, but rather the improper use of accounts.
Specifically, the cease and desist orders allege that Pokésearch and PokéSensor improperly use the “Pokémon Trainer Club”. In response to an inquiry from PokémonGOHub, the operators of the services confirmed that they were using the PTC (Pokémon Trainer Club) with bots to provide their service. So far, there is no information on whether the operators will contest the ban and take it to court or permanently shut down their services.
Although the PokéSensor app is still active and shows Pokémon, it could be stopped with a new update from Niantic. The app has already been removed from the app stores.
Whether Niantic will generally take action against sites and services with live maps remains to be seen. Recently, the developers announced that they at least want to completely end spoofing .
