Pokemon Go Settlement Impact on OPR and POI

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Comments

  • ZaltysZaltys ✭✭✭
    edited September 2019

    That is not what the new OPR guidelines say.

    "Candidates should be rejected if their real-world location appears to be on private, single-family residential property or might encourage people to go onto private property"

    Note the second half. MDU are legally private, regardless of how many families live in the unit. Ergo, MDU courtyard portals 'encourage people to go onto private property', so by the guidelines those should be rejected from now on.

    If that is not the intent -- and that'd be strange, considering that the settlement included those -- then Niantic needs to clarify the guidelines.

  • KliffingtonKliffington ✭✭✭✭✭

    Communal areas are still allowed. Krug reaffirmed that in the August AMA, why would he do that if this was coming a week later?

    Also the rest of that guideline shows what they mean. This lawsuit only applies to single family residences. Communal areas in complexes do not fit their definition of private property

    their real-world location appears to be on private, single-family residential property or might encourage people to go onto private property (e.g., because the real-world location is at the end of a private driveway).

  • ZaltysZaltys ✭✭✭
    edited September 2019

    Maybe he wasn't informed about it.

    Each MDU apartment is a private, single-family residental property. And in case of townhouses and similar, that status extends to the lawn and front yard. To reach a courtyard portal such as a playground, the player is likely to stray onto private property. As such, they're to be rejected by the current guidelines. And I'd say that it is intentional. Niantic paid four million in settlements, but it could've been much worse. I don't think that they're willing to risk an another lawsuit anytime soon.

  • KliffingtonKliffington ✭✭✭✭✭

    Krug already said he was done answering questions about this because he reiterated it multiple times. Niantic does not consider multifamily complexes the same way as single family homes. It was explicit in the lawsuit that they mean single family residences. Apartment complexes are not single family. Communal areas are not the property of a single owner. This has been settled so many times

  • This can be, and it will be very messy situation. There is a lot that Niantic must do to keep things rolling.

    "Niantic itself must review a “statistically significant percentage of new POI submissions” to make sure this is enforced, though they can either use staff or a contractor."

    That might actually give some ideas how to proceed. I think this might work, just my idea:

    When portal goes online, it should go only online in Ingress. Niantic should then evaluate if it makes good PokeStop. Yes, evaluating manually all candidates will be a lot time consuming task, but that might do the trick. This probably will slow OPR (or not, depending what is the final call here).

    This might create strict line between games and causing more separation between agents and trainers. There is a lot "what if". And this should teach this valuable lesson:

    You must use the Common Sense.

  • kholman1kholman1 ✭✭✭✭

    come on people quit trying to reinvent the wheel. They aren't changing the process to remove MDUs and they have a plan to deal with complaints quit trying to change it. They aren't going to start manually cherry picking for pokestops out of portals you lost your mind. Either it meets the requirements via OPR and the algorithm niantic has chosen or it won't become a portal/stop/fortress/inn.

  • At least 95% of POI removal requests must be addressed within 15 days, and will be fulfilled if a POI is within 40 meters of a “single-family residential property.” The removal most occur within five business days of being acknowledged and agreed to.

    So basically, if you don't like someone's couch portal, you can get it removed on request.

  • the help page clearly states single family private residences and this was added this week on the OPR website. It dos not say a word about multifamily unit housing. 🤷‍♂️ They aren't changing the rules on MDU housing.

    SFR as a concept is generally American idea, just FYI. In Europe the same house may not be SFR while still holding multiple families or extended families. And it gets even more imprecise in Asia.

  • I don't think the settlement really changes much for common sense reviewing, other than making sure more closely that things aren't too close to private property.

    For those who DON'T play PoGo, the issue that sparked this wasn't even because of portal placement. The problem was 100% pokemon spawn locations being scattered and randomized everywhere (like XM is), and people were running bot accounts to find where the rare spawns were, causing people to go anywhere they felt like for things they can't ever find elsewhere, with no respect for the people they trespassed against.

    I get the call to keep portals off private property, but I hope Niantic will realize what the real problem was.

  • TheFarixTheFarix ✭✭✭✭✭

    Yes, that was the cause of the trespassing complaints and Niantic has made several attempts to get rid of the PokeTracker bots, but such efforts were not enough to have the lawsuit(s) dismissed. A half dozen home owners simply wanted the game(s) "gone" from their entire neighborhood.

  • harkonnnenharkonnnen ✭✭✭✭

    It wont mean much if anything for agents.

    We had awhile back a local counsellor complain that pogo players where parking on a grass curb and in so destroying the grass area. Eventually as a result the gyms and stops where removed however the portals still remain.

    So while it might affect the effort niantic has to put in, it mightnt have to worry about losing portals as a result.

  • kholman1kholman1 ✭✭✭✭

    that was under the old policy. They are likely to yank everything now.

  • I'd say Niantic really dodged the bullet on this one. The real big issue is "what is the property practice for a geolocation that can contain something "virtual" in a game? Yes, we can place portals and stops within privacy rules - but what about pokemon/foundables/whatever'ss next?

    Just imagine a future where Niantic are selling off their assets to some bigger company (could happen) Soon after, there's a world-wide debate about virtual geolocation leading to legislation making Niantic's former assets worth a lot less. Then the new owner sue Niantic out of existence...

    Yes I went off on a tangent there, but can't you see this "who owns the virtual space" debate resurface at some later date?

  • Yeah... this whole issue of virtual property is going to be interesting. I know I sure as heck do not want them to suddenly remove all pokemon spawns from my house and my neighborhood! And the vast majority of the time players can safely get a spawn that is inside a house without going any closer than the streetside parking, or sidewalk. Then there's the times where a rare spawn appears in a golf course at night when it is closed and unsafe and someone is dumb enough to go for it anyway. I'm rather hopeful, but wondering how they will make parks "close" at night. It would be nice if places that are closed and unsafe stopped spawning things at all.

  • The thing is, nobody should know about that rare spawn, unless they're utilising services that bot etc to create maps.

  • Not entirely true. At least some of the issues with rare spawns causing trespassing are the result of pokemon showing up on the nearby when near a stop. There are stops in cemeteries and parks that close at night and the game will show a rare spawn from at least a quarter mile to a half mile away if it's a new pokemon to the player.

  • It was longer than a week ago. It was reference in my initial arguments with niantic wanting people to pay attention to parks more than prp.

  • The law suits originated when the nearby thing was a 3 step thing, and possibly even when they turned that off.

    You have to remember, the current nearby list isn't what it was.

  • SoylentGrienSoylentGrien ✭✭✭✭✭

  • Sure, but my point is more about what does all of this mean for the various games today. And today, I would very much prefer there NOT be the temptation like my own town had tonight when a Litwick (a rare new pokemon) was spotted on the nearby next to a stop (portal) smack in the middle of a cemetery at 12:30am... Sure, there is such a thing as resisting temptation. However I am hopeful that the settlement will end with some positive results if cemetery and park spawns can be turned OFF at night as another person suggested. And all of this is pretty far down a tangent from asking what all of it means for OPR :)

  • kholman1kholman1 ✭✭✭✭

    They already can lock areas at night. It just has to be from the property owner via request.

  • Turning them off (which they will do on request according to the settlement) just penalises those that work later than others etc.


    Either way, the law suit was not instigated by ingress - that is fact.

    I only chimed in because TC was spouting rubbish, so any other comments that are not entirely clear or accurate, he will latch on to.

  • kholman1kholman1 ✭✭✭✭

    But that is the property owners rights. They have a right to request the shutoff heck they don't even have to be that nice they can request full removal .

  • Never said it wasn't their right - just mentioning how it affects different people.

    It's not an opr consideration unless Nia say it is, so not a reviewers concern.

  • Actually I regularly play late. I work til 10pm and love to play for 1-2 hours after work. But I know better than to go walking through parks and cemeteries that are closed and police will warn me out of at that time. There are only a handful of areas that are really good to play that late, mainly the local university campus. I would honestly prefer to not be tempted by seeing a rare spawn in a place that is unsafe/illegal to go. Sure, it means fewer spawns, but there will still be plenty in other areas. I not talking residential spawns since those are the places most likely to have people play at night and are usually safe to drive or walk close enough to, even at night. But with how adamant they are about enforcing daylight hours on cemeteries in ingress, it's kind of a surprise that they put pokemon there all hours. I would much MUCH prefer to have no spawns or POI at night, and keep my ability to walk and enjoy those same cemeteries by day instead of having a bunch of pogoers get caught and chased out and then see that the cemetery has asked to have everything removed all the time.

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