The Web's top online poker room, Poker Stars, is making new moves to protect the privacy of its players. Due to an increase of online poker portal sites that list performance statistics of players and rank them accordingly, many players on the leaderboards are beginning to complain this information should not be freely displayed for all to see. Poker Stars management has been taking note, and recently announced their data policy will be changed so that only tournament cashes will be displayed as part of each players default performance statistics.

Everything else is now up to the player. Poker Stars issued a cautionary letter to the primary tracking sites responsible for publishing this information, and who have access to the Poker Stars game client software, that in order to display personal information such as profitability and Return on Investment, each players permission must first be obtained. Otherwise, Poker Stars cautioned that game client access would be restricted and/or the service itself could be put to an end.

Poker Stars now requires site operators who rank player performance stats to prominently display an Opt-in/Opt-out link for which players can click to have their information held public or private. All stats on profitability and ROI must be removed, even if a player has not expressed their wishes for either opting in or opting out. Apparently, all that can be displayed until an opt-in has been made is a players username and tournament stats. Poker Stars also gives players the right to opt-out of having their tournament cashes on display.

Staying true to their mantra of listening to player feedback and providing top-tier customer service, Poker Stars certainly deserves a nod of appreciation. Critics, however, claim that just like any competitor sports - the professional poker circuit for that matter - performance statistics should be freely available to anyone. Since earnings are a large factor of performance in the game of poker, perhaps this information should indeed be available. For now, it's up to each player.