Sharkscope tends to be about as illegal as jaywalking. It is one of those things where even when they say it is illegal they don't ever do anything to enforce it so lots of people do it anyways. I don't think it will be going away any time soon.

FTP and Stars (though Stars has since stopped doing this because of poor feedback from users) can track the programs that you have open, including websites in your browser I believe while you are playing on their client.

Awhile back Stars sent out email warnings to users, that prompted a ton of backlash so they still "ban" Sharkscope I believe, but publicly have stated they are committed to working against (or with, depending on how you look at it) Sharkscope, rather than poker players to resolve this matter.

Sharkscope and PokerStars may be close to a compromise, with the "opt in" option on their site, but I can't see Sharkscope ever getting enough people to opt in to actually switchover to that format.

i cant see that sharkscope if robidden on stars now becous they have the opt-in system
so if you want your stats on sharkcsope you have transfer 0.03$ to sharkscope thru stars
and then they transfer it back to you.

It's a useless fight if they really wish to ban this :) 
All it does is penalizes players that do not have more than 1 machine.

I can easily run 2 systems side by side, 1 for scoping 1 for running poker should they disallow them to be ran on at the same time.
It's a losing proposition in the long run for the poker room, might as well accept it :)

I was suspended for using Sharkscope on Full Tilt back in January. I had to promise not to use it any longer, and they said if I did use it again I'd be asked to withdraw my money and not return. So, I don't think Sharkscope support is telling you the whole story. View All My Articles

Were you using the sharkscope HUD?

Only HUD users from what I can tell were issues those warnings.

No, I was not using the HUD. View All My Articles

I really cant see the adventage of knowing that your opponent is a winning player.

well if he is winning player u don't sit him

Any news?As I see still prohibit but are they doing anything against who uses SS?

Yea what the situation now? 

I'm not sure what the deal is on FTP.  I've heard from several players that they use it all the time without any issues.I know Stars has taken the non enforcement approach though.

Just remember to never talk about it in chat.

thats what i know too. dont talk about sharkscope on chat and everything will be fine

Happened to me lots of time that I talk about sharkscope on chat, when im realy tilt im like: youve lost 13 504$ stop laughing at me! :( ( I know I shouldnt do this) Anyway I've used sharkscope for a year now and I dont have any problem! (on full tilt)

The stupid thing I have always thought about the poker sites saying "We don't provide the stats...." etc etc.... OF COURSE THEY DO! I dont mean they send raw data directly to sharkscope, but if not for FTP.com, there would be NO DATA to collect from FTP.com. And they require very specialized software to collect these stats, which is trivially easy for the poker sites to detect and stop - if they really wanted to. Not to mention the only way to collect such stats is to be logged into FTP... with an account (many) ???And yeah, especially when you are getting a berating from an opponent about what a fish you are, and" ty for being such a bad player its good for poker" etc, its VERY tempting to just say "STFU idiot, YOU are the one with -33% ROI over 1200 $20 games -> go sharkscope I think ur in for a surprise ;-D"

I've been using it for months now on Fulltilt, heard that it was banned on pokerstars but then one day saw it was an available client in the launch screen, tried it and it works!! Get on it!

IMO they can't ever officially allow it because that'd make it impossible for them to take action against people who abuse it.It's not just about berating fish in chat - fish often don't know that something like SS exists and telling them may not only make them feel embarrassed, they may also be afraid that their friends and family may find out that they lost some $5k over the last 6 months playing online poker.  So it's understandable that fish will freak out when they learn about it.I'm not sure whether it'd even be possible from a legal point of view to officially allow something, but at the same time take severe action against someone who just mentions the existence of such a tool in chat.  And how should they even explain that to the fish ?So it's probably a lot easier to simply disallow it and if anyone berates a fish with it, they can simply take action for using an illegal tool.From a technical point of view, it's very easy for them to add something to their clients to detect whether you're using it - but they'd only catch "the average user", it won't help them to track down the "really bad guys".  For instance, there's no way of getting caught if you only use SS on your mobile phone and never talk about it in chat.Also be very careful if some regulars are telling you in chat how good / bad they are - don't look them up and tell them, they might be waiting for that to report you.IMO, PTR is just so much worse than SS and they still didn't find a way of shutting it down.  SS only tracks results, but it doesn't show you individual hands and such, for instance.