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Niantic faces a class action lawsuit for encouraging trespassing on private property:
When Niantic released Pokemon Go, it randomly placed Pokémon, Pokéstops and Pokémon Gyms all over the world. Players of the game wander the real world and use smartphones to capture Pokemon, buy items and fight Pokemon Gym leaders.
"To create that immersive world, Niantic made unauthorized use of Plaintiff's and other Class members' property by placing Pokéstops and Pokémon gyms thereupon or nearby," said Jennifer Pafiti in the lawsuit. "In so doing, Niantic has encouraged Pokémon Go's millions of players to make unwanted incursions onto the properties of plaintiff, and other members of the class, a clear and ongoing invasion of their use and enjoyment of their land from which defendants have profited and continue to profit."
Due to the randomized placement of the Pokémon, Pokéstops and Pokémon Gyms, they have turned up in some unwanted locations such as in houses, cemeteries and museums. According to Jeffrey Marder, a man living in New Jersey, he received at least five unwelcome visitors that wanted access to his backyard to catch Pokémon within the first week of the game's launch.
"Plaintiff and other Class members have all suffered and will continue to suffer harm and damages as a result of Defendants' unlawful and wrongful conduct. A class action is superior to other available methods for the fair and efficient adjudication of this controversy," said Pafiti.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by frojack on Wednesday August 03 2016, @08:43PM
The fact that pokemon players are darting over private lawns proves the lie in your claim.
What ever method they used, they clearly didn't vet their results against any official source.
Crowdsourced is a cop out. (And probable a false story anyway to avoid having to pay royalties to who ever provided their mapping data.).
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by curunir_wolf on Wednesday August 03 2016, @10:19PM
The fact that pokemon players are darting over private lawns proves the lie in your claim.
No it doesn't, and calling me a liar because of your own soaring ignorance is really rude. I suggest you rethink your response and issue an apology.
I am a crackpot
(Score: 3, Insightful) by art guerrilla on Thursday August 04 2016, @01:01AM
wtf?
um, BECAUSE it was crowdsourced, (OR WHATEVER THE FUCK) *that* makes it 'okay' ?
that makes less than zero sense...
oh, they curated the info... sure they did...
it may very well be it was screwed up before, but only since it was you and your buddy 'playing', nobody noticed...
now that -apparently- half the stupid fucking human race is 'playing' this idiotic thing, it is more noticeable...
and, NO, i DON"T want poketards -OR ANYONE- wandering over our property, up our private road, around our house, FOR ANY OR NO REASON...
EXACTLY why i live in the country, so i don't see my stupid neighbors, i don't hear a million loud nekkid apes, and my dogs have the run of the property...
and YES, in our neck of the woods, basically ALL (non-neighbor) pedestrians ARE suspicious: we live too far out for anyone to just 'wander' by here on a lark, or on the way to someplace else, just don't happen... we are on the way to nowhere, with no through streets, and no businesses or anything of any significance that attracts people to walk around here...
you got a flat tire/whatever, you will get more help than you can use; you lost a dog, we will all look; you need a phone 'cause yours died, of course...
but IF you are a (non-neighbor) walking out here, it is 'unusual' enough to garner automatic and justifiable suspicion you are up to no good...
(bear in mind we -and a LOT of neighbors- leave our houses unlocked when we go away for a week or more...)
(Score: 2) by curunir_wolf on Thursday August 04 2016, @01:37AM
You called me a liar after I proved to you that Niantic staff personally vetting each and every location to ensure it's publicly accessible (among other TOS requirements), and STILL no apology? You're a dick. No wonder you live in the country, nobody would ever want to be around a fucking asshole like you. I feel sorry for the poor sod that has a flat tire near your precious wasteland, as you'll likely treat them like dog shit you scrapped off your shoe, like you have me.
shitass.
I am a crackpot
(Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday August 04 2016, @05:43PM
You've proved nothing.
You've made a bunch of unsubstantiated claims of vetting, yet players still appear on private property chasing digital apparitions that SHOULD NOT BE THERE.
Where's your vetting now?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by curunir_wolf on Friday August 05 2016, @03:19AM
I am a crackpot
(Score: 2) by art guerrilla on Friday August 19 2016, @01:51AM
wtf? part two
i didn't call you a liar, i don't even know what you are talking about, and i could not care less about the ins-outs of the stupid pokeshit or any other such claptrap, whether it was 'crowdsourced' (why not simply say 'its magic!'), or who vetted what for what...
given how weird you talk, i am perfectly fine with you categorizing me as a 'foe' (whatever that stupid shit means)...
WHOEVER was talking about how harmless it was to have poketards (or anyone, anytime?) wander over your PRIVATE property, whether by 'mistake' or not: THAT is the point i was responding to... peoples' (NOT JUST precious, PRECIOUS ME) PRIVATE property has certain rights over YOUR non-right to wander wherever you fucking feel like it... i respect YOUR right to have your private property respected, why don't you respect mine ? ? ?
AGAIN, someone has vehicle trouble/etc, people (including me, yep, based on a true story) will help them out without a second thought... but 'wandering around' out here just isn't a common phenomenon... we got more livestock than people, more limerock than paved roads, and more unwalkable miles between anywhere, so pedestrians kind of stick out... and if you add on to that insult that they are poketards doing *WHAT* the fuck exactly ? ? ? yeah, then it is just maddening on top of annoying...
and finally, i am glad that you approve of my absenting my asshole self from the asphalt rat's maze you oh-so-kind mammals choose to live in; for myself, i prefer trees and flowers and critters and stars and sun and rain and plants and dogs and wind and NO OTHER stupid shits around honking and yelling and boomboxing and screeching and peeling out and yakking and banging and clanging and sirening and revving and shouting and screaming and driving like they are the only person on the road...
yeah, don't really miss too much of that...
foe on, bitch...
(Score: 2) by cykros on Thursday August 04 2016, @04:25AM
False story? Considering the 3 portals nearest my house are with names I came up with and with pictures I took, I'm going to have to just shake my head over this doubt-for-the-sake-of-doubting claim.
And yea, 2 of the 3 of them are pokestops, the third is a gym. In Ingress, they even have the player name for who submitted them, and there was an achievement badge for approved new portal submissions.
As for Pokemon players darting over private lawns, it's worth noting that Pokemon, unlike Ingress, isn't all about the pokestops and gyms. The pokemon themselves move, for one, which invariably places them at times on private land. Beyond that, FINDING them is something that takes exploration, because unlike in Ingress, where any game object a player interacts with is right on a map for all to see, the Pokemon are only known to be more or less nearby, but any direction or coordinates are left out so as to encourage wandering around to deduce a position. I've personally yet to encounter a portal that cannot be legally accessed in 4 years of play, at least during certain hours (there are definitely some in cemetaries that do close at night, but it's generally understood, at least among Ingress players, that closed means closed. I'm not sure how much that holds true among the often younger demographic that is playing Pokemon Go).
Niantic should probably provide a more clear method for complaints about portals only accessible on private property, because it's unlikely that none slipped through the cracks in their vetting process. However, I'm not sure I'd go so far as to agree that any court should force them to do this, or frankly that they're legally in the wrong here to begin with. They've always been clear that trespassing is not in the spirit of gameplay, going back to Ingress's beta stage, and holding them accountable for what users of the apps they put out do is like holding football manufacturers responsible for the same type of behavior.