Casinos Selling Player Info ...

[casinogossip]

Whether you’re a player or not, I imagine the title of this thread immediately grabbed your attention. Furthermore, I surmise that you would undoubtedly find the practice of sharing personal information unacceptable.

Well, I submit for your consideration the idea that some casinos regardless of their own privacy policies willfully distribute player’s personal information. They submit to other casinos, members of their affiliate database, and to anyone willing to pay the asking price.

Personally I find this practice to be unequivocally intolerable and believe it is something that should never occur. I am however confident that it is standard operating procedure for numerous groups and individuals alike. I think that any and all individuals who are found to be sharing confidential player information should be exposed for the unethical piece of you know what that they are!

What would you do if you discovered your personal information was being sold?

If you knew a casino was selling player data would you play there?

Do you receive casino oriented spam?

If you knew an affiliate was purchasing player databases and spamming would you visit their portals?

What can be done to limit and/or eliminate this practice?

I feel very strongly about this topic – I can think of no legitimate reasons to sell player information; maybe I am not thinking hard enough. How do you feel about this subject?

[rowmare]

The subject of player information - such as email addresses - finding themselves on purchased mailing lists is utterly disgusting.

I've recently seen a rather prominent affiliate actually state on a well visited forum that he has a rather large mailing list for sale. Apparently it's so large that the cost of keeping it hosted has become too much (i.e. the list has been used up and become stale). This same affiliate claims to have bought this huge list from an online casino(s).

I'd like to hear what others think about this practice.

[rowmare]

Can we assume by the lack of responses that the majority of webmasters condon the selling of player information, as well as the email spamming which results?

I tell ya, I'm had it up to here (indicates neck) with webmasters in this industry who are wiling to stand by and do nothing to right any wrongs, to have a positive influence on the online gambling industry, to stand up when something is amiss and to stand by the people in this industry who do have the balls to stand up and say something.

This industry is pretty much a self-regulated industry. If we want to keep it that way, and keep Big Brother from stripping our freedoms, by golly, we have to self regulate!

Damn!

[casinogossip]

WOW - finally a response - ok.

I agree with you and I am very surprised that this issue has not gotten more feedback – I had always heard this was a popular site – maybe I was mistaken and/or I posted in the wrong forum?

I further concur we, the industry as a whole need to do our best to do the right thing in any and every situation – particularly when it comes to player confidentiality. The selling and or sharing of player’s private information is unacceptable unless those players have agreed to let their info be shared/sold. I however do not believe that is the case in that I as a player would never agree to let my personal data be shared or sold. Maybe some would?

Additionally, I find it repulsive to think a webmaster is purchasing player mailing list directly from casinos, milking them for what they are worth, and then trying to pawn them off to other webmasters. Any casino found to be selling and/or distributing player list to their affiliates should be held accountable. Likewise any affiliate known to be spamming or reselling said list should equally be responsible for those negative actions.

When members of our community behave unethically it can and most often does to some extent have a negative impact, directly or indirectly on the industry as a whole. I for one can’t set silently on the sideline while the advantageous “get it while the getting is good” mentality is running amuck. If I discover a casino or affiliate for that matter doing something that I think is wrong – I will do my best to give them the publicity they deserve.

As for my thoughts on the questions I presented above …

When I sign up for mailing list I usually try and use a unique address … for example if I were signing up on acmepoker I might use acmepoker1234@myaddress.com Then if I ever received email from any one other than acme poker I would know my info had been sold or shared. I can assure you I would not be very happy and that I would pursue any and all options available to me.

If I knew a casino willingly shared player info – I would never sign up there. Likewise I would never visit a portal that participated in the exchange of player data without the knowledge and permission of those players.

What can be done? I think disclosure is the first step in making things right. It will not eliminate this practice entirely (there will always be bad apples), but if it prevented just one incidence I believe it would be worth it. A few bad apples can indeed spoil the entire basket – I am looking to get rid of those crabby apples before they bruise my skin, my fellow colleagues skin, and the entire industries skin.

[Casinomeister]

Originally Posted by casinogossip

WOW - finally a response - ok.

I agree with you and I am very surprised that this issue has not gotten more feedback – I had always heard this was a popular site – maybe I was mistaken and/or I posted in the wrong forum?...

Weekends are the least active of the seven day week. Weekdays are the most active (people have computers at work - or the husband/wife is away)

There are a lot of blind eyes being turned, and that's the nature of the business. But if you get caught BUSTED - time for "tar and feather" time. Most of the prominate casinos don't do the spam thing (sending unsolicited emails) because they WILL get busted out by savy players with email schemes (vegas7casinomyyahoo@yahoo.com). I've noticed some players signing up in the forum with casinomeisterforum@hotmail or whatever as an example. But this has happened only a couple of times.

Busting affiliates is easy - you get the spam-mail - note the affiliate account - pass it on to the affiliate manager. Most of the managers who are on the up an up will nail these guys. They don't need to have their client (casino) pegged as a spammer since most players don't realize it's the affiliates who do most of the spamming. It's not normally the casinos - in most cases.

[casinogossip]

“There are a lot of blind eyes being turned, and that's the nature of the business. “

Yes, I agree and quite frankly that is a sad state of affairs. I reckon some think that if they are not participating in such schemes then it is not their duty to speak out against those that do. I however reiterate my stance that disclosure or “tar and feather” as you stated is putting a foot, if not our best forward.

You also stated that most of the prominent casinos do not spam themselves. The problem with that statement is that you said “most” and not “none of” … Moreover I would surmise that some of those included in the grasp of that “most” statement may very well be sharing players data with select affiliates and/or other associates.

This would still afford them the ability to spam per say without being the one carrying out the criminal act. IMHO they still would be guilty by association or as the DOJ would like to say guilty of aiding and abetting an illegal act.

The problem that faces us is much bigger than any one entity. Stopping one or a few will surely not end this phenomenon, but eliminating those few or at the very least tarring and feathering them is better in my eyes than doing nothing about it at all.

[Casinomeister]

Thanks for bringing this stuff up. There are a lot of important issues here, and I'll be using some of this for my presentation in Amsterdam. Detecting Affiliate spam - contacting the right people - etc. It's a never-ending struggle - that's for sure.

[Casinomeister]

This was getting buried in the Webmaster section, so I'd thought I'd bring it over here for the common registered user to comment on

[deaning]

Hmmm.

I pretty well have little to do with any webmasters in the industry anymore, quite simply because I got so fed up with the greedy scumbag factor.

By the same token I have made some long term friendships. It is no accident the vast majority are silent. Some could care less, the ones that do have had a taste of retribution and are in fear of voicing an opinion.

Bad state of affairs!

[dominique]

Originally Posted by deaning

Hmmm.

Some could care less, the ones that do have had a taste of retribution and are in fear of voicing an opinion.

Bad state of affairs!

Yep Dean, remember what happened when we went after the spammer in Belgium?

He sent enough spam our way to bog down the servers. I haven't decided yet whether the hacking of my server a bit later, that used my popular poker site's URL for phishing expeditions, was connected.

I had to shut down the server and redo everything on a new server. Luckily it was obvious it was hacked or I would be in jail today too. To this day I cannot use the URL anymore because it still receives bounces and complaints.

There is a lot of money made by some who engage in unethical practices, and they are not above silencing noisy little pests like us.