Alright, so I started playing IMVU again recently and as I was chilling on my phone chatting to people in a room, I got in an argument with a person about stupid things. So, this person I was having an argument with started to act angry or he was pretending to be angry just to make it personal for no reason at all. He told me that he knows where I live even though my location is off. Then he proceeds on telling me my location(just the country) and, of course I said that's not true just to protect myself even though he said it right. After that he said/guessed another country but it made me panic a bit, so I went to settings to change the location even though it was set on off. Then he was typing "lololol" and told me that he's gonna make a problem to me. So I dismissed it as a pure lucky guess and a coincidence regardless of him guessing it right.

A few days passed(3 days) and I started having issues with my internet network like all the day. It was slow and putting me offline, so I'm thinking that the guy from IMVU somehow found my IP address and now he's ddosing me. I called the ISP and they reset it for me and now everything is alright. I'm still a bit spooked out and I keep on thinking that the guy from IMVU is behind all this and he's gonna cause the same problem to me again, because how on earth can he guess the country I'm in on the first try? It was so weird like could he know a way to see peoples location even when it's set off? Or maybe he can pull IP addresses straight from the IMVU chats? Or is it all just a coincidence and the network problem I had isn't related to any of that?

Tl;dr can someone find your IP address while chatting on IMVU and can they see your country even if your location is hidden?

The following actions in IMVU can expose your IP address:
1) Clicking a link
2) Using a flash product
3) Using voice chat

As for turning off your location, that's not going to do much. There are plenty of sites and tools out there that scrape IMVU multiple times per day and save your data when it is turned on ... either giving the data away for free or selling it or in hopes of getting you to pay a bride to stop giving it away.

Oh dang, I haven't clicked on any link that I'm aware of unless I did it by a mistake. Also I don't use voice chat but maybe I'm using a flash product hmm... I'm not so sure what I got saved in my looks so I need to reinspect them. Could it be the trigger penis that I'm using since that's the only strange item in my inventory I can think of. Anyways my network is stable now, and I haven't been on IMVU since this shit happened because I'm worried this guy gonna find me again and cause issues with my connection. Also thanks for the advices, I will make sure to re-check every item I got in my inventory.

Don Von Alpha Dom wrote:

As for turning off your location, that's not going to do much. There are plenty of sites and tools out there that scrape IMVU multiple times per day and save your data when it is turned on ... either giving the data away for free or selling it or in hopes of getting you to pay a bride to stop giving it away.

Well that seems like a pain in the ass then. Are there any precautions I can take to prevent all of that happening? Like should I use a VPN or something like that?

Only furniture and rooms can be flash products, and only on the classic client.

Well that seems like a pain in the ass then. Are there any precautions I can take to prevent all of that happening? Like should I use a VPN or something like that?

You can't prevent something that has already happened. They already have the data and it is saved. Unless you start over with a new IMVU account and never set your location, they have it.

Don Von Alpha Dom wrote:

You can't prevent something that has already happened. They already have the data and it is saved. Unless you start over with a new IMVU account and never set your location, they have it.

You are right, it's too late for that. Fucking hell, dude how do they get away with shit like that? But then I guess it's just like any other social media that are stealing info and selling/sharing to third parties. At the end of the day it is what it is.

Data scraping and data mining are not illegal. These tools are only scraping and saving publicly available data. When there are no laws against it, there is nothing to get away from ... no law enforcement cracking down on it.

If you've ever used one of the default IMVU clients, the IMVU clients steals over 120 different pieces of personal data from your computer / device every single time you login. IMVU both uses this data to track their users and sells this data to third parties. Mafia modified clients have the spyware ripped out, but that does not delete the stuff IMVU has already collected ... or that you have already entered into their client. The data has already been scraped, sold, and traded around.

The best you can do is be more privacy conscious going forward and eventually the data will get too old to use against you.

Hmm.. and that data the IMVU is stealing from me, the 120 different pieces that you mentioned, it's just that publicly available data right? And not like they are going to steal my private stuff like photos from my laptop and phone or passwords from the email and other social media? Because if they do that, thats breaking the law pretty much. And yeah, I use the default IMVU clients.
I'm reading the forum in the past few days and I found about that Mafia modified clients you guys have here, but I have some questions for that and I might do a separate topic about it and I will try not to ask the obvious. Thanks for the heads up though.

there is alot of websites out there ppl use to scrap info about other imvu users

Here is a full list of everything that the official IMVU client steals when you login:
viewtopic.php?p=115013#p115013

it's just that publicly available data right?

No.

And not like they are going to steal my private stuff like photos from my laptop and phone

They steal your camera specs, photo sizes, and supported photo formats, but not your actual photos.

or passwords from the email and other social media?

The closest thing they take to passwords are device ID's / serial numbers, and some product license keys. Those could be used to steal or cash in on hardware warranties.

Because if they do that, that's breaking the law pretty much. And yeah, I use the default IMVU clients.

The most illegal thing they probably steal are your chat logs. Those are given to their employees whenever your client crashes. On top of that, all of your chat logs are being sold to a company named "Spectrum Labs" that makes AI. They are using our chats to train their AI to recognize healthy and unhealthy human behavior.

Don Von Alpha Dom wrote:

Here is a full list of everything that the official IMVU client steals when you login:
viewtopic.php?p=115013#p115013.

Well dang, that's a lot of things they are stealing. So by using their app/game, we all agree to this so they can steal all that info from us by default right? That's insane! Guess it's too late for me to complain because I have been using their clients for like 3 years now.

Don Von Alpha Dom wrote:

The most illegal thing they probably steal are your chat logs. Those are given to their employees whenever your client crashes. On top of that, all of your chat logs are being sold to a company named "Spectrum Labs" that makes AI. They are using our chats to train their AI to recognize healthy and unhealthy human behavior.

That's totally messed up too. It's like a private surveillance that they put on everyone that use their app. And that name Specturm Labs suits it well, since that's how they made it to be, like we are a laboratory mices in a lab. Seems like we can't have any privacy on the internet anymore.

wocktivity wrote:

there is alot of websites out there ppl use to scrap info about other imvu users

Wow really? Can you send me any links so I can test it on my user if I can scrap the info of my location or email and such?