Pokemon Go player bans reversed by Niantic - CNET

In the last month, Pokemon Go developer Niantic has been stepping up its banning game, cutting off users who use third-party services to help them become Pokemasters.

Bans were given to players using add-on maps that show Pokemon locations, emulators that allow you to play the game on a laptop or PC and bots that play the game for you, tricking the app into believing you are walking around when you are not and automatically catching Pokemon for you.

Now, according to a post by Niantic CEO John Hanke, some of those bans are being reversed -- but only for those players using add-on maps.

"Some players may not have realised that some add-on map apps do more than just show you nearby Pokémon. Each end-user app can be used as a collection tool by the app creator, invisibly collecting and forwarding data to the app creator with or without the knowledge of the end user. These apps can have an effect similar to DDoS attacks on our servers," he wrote.

Now, the team at Niantic has made some changes to its infrastructure that allows those bans to be reversed, but there is a caveat.

"Add-on maps which scrape data from our servers still violate our Terms of Service and use of them may still result in an account ban going forward," Hanke added.