1. What ‘iesnare’ collects and does?
2. What other products gaming companies use to track personal activity?
3. What the reality is of combining the information from 1&2?
4. What is legal and what is not (seems impossible to work out)?

1. What ‘iesnare’ collects and does?
It’s more akin to a hardware tracker as opposed to an internet activity tracker. It is taking, something similar to a ‘fingerprint’ (footprint in IT terms) of your device and enables a company to identify your device when it is transmitting. Once your device is in the ‘Iovation’ database there is no hiding unless you can be bothered and know how to block the multiple and continual attempts to download it or how it transmits. Examples of what it knows about your device are:
Device Type e.g. PC, MAC, etc.,Operating System e.g. Windows, OS X, Linux, etc., IP Address, IP Geolocation: City, IP Geolocation Country Code, IPGeolocation Proxy Flag, IP Geolocation Country Name, Internet Service Provider (ISP), Operating System Version, Component Serial Numbers, MAC Address and many more.
There is no question that its primary use is for fraud and other crime, but some bookmakers use it continually even when they don’t suspect you of fraud or any criminal activity. They do not discriminate between customers and will continue to use it even if you have been a customer for years without any suspicious activity. This cannot be ethically sound, therefore it has to be suspected ‘iesnare’ is used for other reasons than criminality, i.e. infringing terms and conditions (T&Cs) and helping to build a better picture of you and your gambling when combined with No.2.
Some sites and people suggest it is easy to overcome ‘iesnare’. If you are tech savvy, maybe, but don’t forget it is only the downloading and/or transmitting that is overcome. Once your device is in Iovation’s database it is there for life, which means it is always waiting to reactivate when you make changes to your device and/or forget to upgrade your defences against it.

2. What other products bookmakers use to track personal activity?
Bookmakers use everything they can get their hands on. This is where most people should have their main concerns about tracking and privacy, but it is virtually all legal and I suspect major bookmakers won’t step over the line legally, because they don’t have to. Unless, you are very determined and willing to lose nearly all your accounts (you won’t be allowed to access many bookmakers’ servers if you block all tracking) there is little you can do. Basically, you are tracked legally, or blocked if you stop this happening completely. Bookmaker’s T&Cs are unclear as to what personal information they collect in this area. Is the data pooled before they see it, i.e. not identifiable to you specifically? Some T&Cs hint this is the case, but I suspect some companies know exactly where else you have been on the internet (sadly not illegal, if you are upfront about it, but bookmakers to my knowledge are not – AND boringly I’ve read quite a few sets of T&Cs).

3. What the reality is of combining the information from 1&2?
If you want to bet online, you allow bookmakers to know a lot about you or you are not allowed to bet and there is no way round this without the UK Gambling Commission and/or government doing something.

4. What is legal and what is not (seems impossible to work out)?
Again, if my last assumption in No.2 is correct, it is all very, very frustrating. Bookmakers are not doing anything that is easy to prove as being illegal and finding anyone to help is virtually impossible. Bookmakers are certainly pushing the boundaries of legality, but the authorities are none too keen to get involved: There are bigger fish to fry and helping punters is way down on their list of priorities. I suspect a good lawyer would enable you to stop some of this tracking without losing accounts, but naming and shaming is cheaper. Why do I suspect this? I’m aware that some large bookmakers will reinstate accounts if you display some understanding of consumer law. I suspect they are keen to keep everything pretty quiet, as much for PR reasons as anything else, but it does hint they are pushing things legally, especially with the wording of their T&Cs.

You are asking for people to follow-up and provide information as to whether ‘iesnare’ has been on their PC/tablet/whatever. I commend this, but if a company uses ‘iesnare’ we already know the answer; it is 100% of customers, except those with ‘convenience accounts’ (you know who you are). Nevertheless, it would be good for punters to know exactly which companies are using ‘iesnare’ at any moment in time, so a couple of recommendations: