At Niantic, we’re committed to encouraging a fun and safe environment for all our players while they are out exploring the world. With this commitment in mind, we take fairness and player safety seriously. When we receive reports that someone has acted in a way that’s not in line with our Terms of Service and Player Guidelines, we work towards reviewing these reports as soon as possible in order to take appropriate action.

 

Currently, you can report another user for any of the following behaviors:

To report a player, contact us via in-app support.

 

Our disciplinary actions are aimed at discouraging cheating and other violations of Niantic’s policies, and we try to give issue warnings before taking other measures, to give players the opportunity to reform. If a player who has violated Niantic’s policies does not change their ways and continues to abuse the rules, we will terminate their account. While there are some abusers with no intention of reforming, most players just need a warning or two to mend their ways and contribute positively to the game community. For some egregious abusers, we may terminate their accounts immediately without providing an opportunity to reform.

 

At all times, your identity is kept anonymous and none of your information is shared with other players. Unfortunately, we cannot comment on any specific actions we might have taken against other players, due to privacy reasons. 

 

We’re constantly working on improving our cheating detection systems as new cheating techniques come out. When a player is reported for a form of cheating that is not currently detected, we analyze their activity through various means to identify suspicious behavior. The absence of immediate disciplinary action after submitting a report shouldn’t be misinterpreted as inaction. Some reviews can take longer than others and may require additional investigation, while others might be much more straightforward and result in quicker decisions.

 

We may decide to warn the player or suspend their account temporarily under the Three Strikes Discipline Policy. For serious infractions, we may permanently ban them to avoid further violations of our terms. 

 

We often hear players ask us to share more information about someone they’ve reported. To keep our systems confidential and to avoid providing details to bad actors attempting to derive information about our system, we cannot share additional details on our response to your reports or provide information on how our anti-cheat systems work. But rest assured your reports are essential to us in keeping our anti-cheat systems up-to-date. On occasion, we share blog updates that highlight some of our anti-cheat enforcement progress from time to time, reinforcing your contributions towards this effort.

COMM is all about building connections with other players while playing. If a player is abusive on chat or doesn’t follow our guidelines, you can report them within the app.

 

Once reported, we will review the message in question along with the player’s previous history of violations, if any. Depending on the outcome of our investigation, we will take appropriate action against the reported player. The severity of our disciplinary actions aim to be in proportion to the frequency and gravity of the abuse. This may include warnings for smaller incidents or to first-time violators, or suspension or termination of their chat for repeat violations or excessively inappropriate content.

 

We also strongly encourage you not to engage further with these players and instead report and block them. Remember, if you post offensive messages in response to another player’s messages, we could also take disciplinary action against you.

 

If the abuse is happening on third-party platforms like Facebook or Twitter, we recommend that you reach out to the respective platform directly to report the behavior. This ensures that the platform in question is able to use its own systems in taking informed actions. While we may review such reports on our end, we cannot remove content or apply disciplinary actions within any third-party platform.

 

If you find yourself in an uncomfortable interaction or unsafe real-word situation, we strongly suggest you remove yourself from it and reach out to your local law enforcement if you feel you or other players are in danger.

At the same time, we ask that you report the player to us via in-app support. While such incidents are usually not easy for us to verify, we will review their history of reports and take disciplinary actions wherever necessary. We may also request additional information to further investigate your report and have a better understanding of the situation so we can take the right course of action.