Earlier this month, Pokémon GO developer Niantic Labs finally started cracking down on cheaters by issuing sanctions that include permanent bans. However, in a blog post, the company stated that it is reversing some of the bans that it has handed out.
This does not mean that Niantic Labs is loosening its policy against cheating in the popular augmented reality mobile game though. In fact, the developer is still as strict as ever against players who use illegitimate means to acquire high-level Pokémon and gain massive experience points.
In a blog post that updates the status of account bans on Pokémon GO, Niantic Labs said that it is working to ensure an even playing field in the game and the integrity of its servers by preventing unauthorized access and enforcing bans on accounts that attempt to do so.
The developer said that, for some Pokémon GO players, they may not have known that using add-on map apps to show all the nearby Pokémon is detrimental to the game. The apps could serve as data collection tools for the developer, with each installed app forwarding the collected data to the developer. Such a set-up creates a similar effect as a distributed denial of service, or DDoS attack, on Niantic Labs' servers.
DDoS attacks are a kind of attack used by hackers to try to overload a service with large amounts of automated traffic, with the aim of taking down the target service. Because of the many information requests being made by add-on map apps, they looked like DDoS attacks, and so accounts that used these apps received a ban.
The banned accounts due to this reason are a small percentage of the accounts that have been banned by Niantic Labs. However, due to changes that the developer has made to its server infrastructure, it has decided to reverse the ban on these accounts.
The developer, however, is quick to note that add-on maps that collect data from its servers are still in violation of Pokémon GO's Terms of Service, and so using them can still result in account bans.
Banned accounts that scrape data as their sole purpose or that use websites or apps to remotely perform actions such as catching Pokémon and accessing PokéStops will not be unbanned, Niantic Labs said.
"Our main priority is to provide a fair, fun and legitimate experience for all players," Niantic Labs said, promising an aggressive ban to be implemented on the accounts of users who perform such cheats.
