Privacy Policy vs. Public Disclosure

General Discussion
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First off, I want to give Niantic kudos for handling the most recent situation. As carefully as they can in this current environment.

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@nianticatlas delivered a simple and succinct message about the actions taken again the OP in question.

However… and it’s a big however. I feel the community deserves more than this statement. We are all trying our best to stay compliant and do what is right and correct.

I understand there are privacy concerns and they very from country to country, but there has to be a common sense way to decimate information to the player base some specifics of the infraction, so the same problem is not repeated over and over simply because the Explorer was not educated with the information or situation.

No one wants to be outed in the virtual public square for misdeeds done either unintentional or on purpose, however what we have now is a culture of Twitter (X) tough guys bashing Niantic every time someone gets a warning letter or a suspension.

I fully acknowledge that some of these suspensions are in conjunction with the other teams under Niantic’s umbrella. Adding additional complexities.

I really think Niantic could do it’s self a favor my taking time to do an internal review of its policies on disclosure and find a way to get this information out to the greater player base. Right now, you come off looking like the bad guy. When in essence, you’ve probably taken the correct action.

Idea 1 - Have the Explorers sign a waiver stating they agree to have information leading to a warning or suspension potientially released to the public for information purposes.

Idea 2 Niantic have direction communication with the Explorer in question, that Explorer can decide if they want to personally disclose the reasons behind the warning or suspension.

I think the secrecy behind these decisions is what is making the general public nervous. Thinking they could be suspended for actions they don’t know and/or understand.

I’m not going to pretend to know international laws on privacy and I’m sure you have lawyers who are well versed in them. Put them to work and give the community something… anything to help them put the fears away and be a little more transparent. @NianticLC @NianticAaron

Thank you,

Jamal

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I don’t know the full details of this, but I also remember an old comment from a Niantic staff member on the previous forums along the lines of:

“What you see on social media may not be the whole story.”

I will need to call on our keeper of records @cyndiepooh for the exact quote, but that’s me paraphrasing what I can remember.

You have spoken on the podcast before about when you have seen people “cry wolf” and then with further things they sent you privately, it was found that there was some Wayfarer abuse.

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I also remember the statement after a particular case of outrage on the internet but can’t find it. Sorry I failed.

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No worries at all. I think what I said was close enough. Thanks for looking :+1:

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I managed to find it! Here’s the quote from NianticAaron for context.

Hey there,

Thanks for voicing your concerns.

I assure you that the punishments are handed out after proper investigation by our team. We do not hand out punishments for auto-rejections by the system or for nominations that fall in the grey area. While our team may remove some Wayspots, they do not always trigger punishments. Posts on social media do not always paint the complete picture and thus may be misleading.

We hand out punishments for clear violations of our policies that may include repeated low quality submissions, fake submissions, influencing reviewers, harassing others, participating in voting rings etc.

If someone does not indulge in these practices, there is nothing to worry.

I hope this clears the air and addresses the confusion.

Happy Exploring!

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Exposing the abuse gives people ideas on how to further exploit said abuse or may encourage others to replicate it.

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Or more importantly how to abuse juuuuuuuuuuuuuust enough to avoid detection.

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I’m the op of the twitter post and I don’t see what’s wrong about telling people about my situation.
Was I supposed to dm every single person in my friends list?
Because I can’t interact with them and I have people to all over the world to get in touch with.

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No, I don’t think there is anything wrong at all. I am saying if there is more information coming from Niantic. We can prevent a lot of this from happening.

In the past, OP’s have made public one or two of the emails they have received from Niantic, but not all.

The general public tends to 100% believe the player and 0% believe Niantic. I was that out, I think it’s usually somewhere in the middle.

But the only people that will ever know the truth are you and Niantic. Unless you and or them publish all the information for all of us to see and we can make our own determination.

Does that make sense?

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You are of course free to tell people about your situation! Niantic isn’t though, and we don’t want them to. As weird and counterintuitive as it seems it’s a good thing that they don’t tell personal details about anyone’s account. You’re free to tell anyone you would like!

And now I’m going to beat up on my personal dead horse for a second here: once again, as always, situations like this could be avoided with more education as to how Wayfarer works and clearer emails. The community on the forums does an excellent job of helping people understand, but these emails. Not helpful enough.

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I published ALL of the emails I received on the forum so you can agree or disagree with me but I shared the whole story

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I agree with you on that.
Am I supposed to share also the name of the person who explained my situation to me?
I need to know in order to make screenshots properly

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If you mean an email from Niantic I think that’s probably fine! Just make sure your email address isn’t visible so random people online can find it.

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