You can now ban virtual parasites, pets, to prevent nerds from walking around your property. • The register

Pokemon Go will soon let people ban his virtual pets from settling around their home as a result of a legal settlement with homeowners who are fed up with zombie kids.

It's been two years since gambling has become an international fashion, with millions of smart phone users wandering in real streets trying to catch animated Japanese animals by throwing virtual balls at them.

The huge success of the game has resulted in a whole host of problems, such as gangsters hanging around popular Pokemon Go spots and the theft of geeks under threat from guns, security loopholes that flout privacy , an outbreak of car accidents and injuries caused by the forced displacement of players or zombies. like players wandering on the road. The game was even at the end of an Islamic fatwa.

But the biggest problem is where the Pokémon appeared, waiting to be caught. The company behind the game, Niantic, tends to use landmarks or points of public interest to locate "Pokestops" where players can collect items to play the game, or larger or larger "gyms" Pokemon player groups can gather in the real world to gather. play together in the virtual world.

The problem is that sometimes people do not want others to roam on their property. An Australian police station is so fed up that people roam the streets to track down virtual bugs that it sets up placards warning them that players will be arrested and placed in cells.

A hospital in Oregon also complained formally to the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) that zombie players were wandering in areas deprived of its facilities to be able to play.

Sue time

But the tightening finally took place with no less than 12 different people suing Niantic [PDF] in California for encouraging strangers to roam their property in search of pixellated parasites.

One of the owners of a beachfront condo in Florida has been baffled to find hundreds of players "acting like zombies, strolling, clashing with things" because one " gym "had been installed near their home. The zombie players would be there at any time, complains the owner.

Another said that just five weeks after the release of the game, five different people rang his door and asked to enter his yard to catch Pokemon. As you might expect, there are literally a dozen other examples, including in a Holocaust museum in Washington DC, which according to some were of a somewhat mediocre taste.

After two years of litigation and an arbitration session in November, the problem was resolved this week and Niantic promised [PDF] introduce a new feature allowing users to complain about the location of the game's virtual resources.

The company said it would now resolve complaints about the intrusion of people on the land of others within 15 days, and would also give owners of "single-family residential properties" the right to block access to a gym or pokestop within 40 meters of their property.

It will also keep a database of complaints and modify the game to prevent Pokémon from appearing where people do not want it, and add warnings to the game by inviting players to be courteous to others. , especially if they form a large group.

The company will begin to respect park hours and prevent Pokémon from appearing after hours. And he will hire an audit firm to review the operation of his system.

Regarding the 12 Pokehating Complainants? They will each receive $ 1,000 each. Of course, lawyers benefit from the best offer: up to $ 8 million in legal fees and $ 130,000 in fees. The lawyers claim to have spent 2,500 hours working on the case, which still represents $ 3,200 an hour if they have the $ 8 million needed. Now THIS is how to play Pokemon Go. ®