If you are a seasoned IMVU user you would know that IMVU allows you to hide your outfit(s) from other users. A way to get around that was to use a feature on the IMVU Emporium (IMVU-E) called the Hidden Outfit Viewer. I believed the hide outfit option on IMVU hurts creators in the long run. What is really the point of hiding your outfit from other users? Is it to stop people from copying your look? I can understand that you don't want people copying your originality, but in the grand scheme of things that feature stops the creators that made what you are wearing from potential new customers. I ultimately don't have a huge problem with the feature IMVU offered, but here is where IMVU-E gets unethical. I mentioned before that IMVU-E had a feature to un-hide outfits. I don't remember exactly when but at some point they started to charge $10 to remove your avatar from having it's outfit viewed! If you don't see the problem with this, then allow me to explain. IMVU offered a feature to hide your outfit...for free; IMVU-E then offers a feature to un-hide that avatars outfit...for free; IMVU-E then comes around and starts charging people for a service they were getting from IMVU for free already that THEY took upon themselves to undo! And you know what the worst part is? I have some links that will unhide outfits anyway and as far as I know they aren't exploiting users for $10. Remixie's IMVU Pro This is my biggest gripe with IMVU-E. They are charging for a solution to the problem they created. I would not have an issue if they offered the feature to opt-out of having your outfit un-hidden for free. As I said before I believe the option to hide outfits hurts creators, but no one should be exploited like that. And yes it is exploitation. Obviously no one is forcing people to pay the $10 but at one point the two sites I linked above were not available. This meant that if you really did not want people on IMVU seeing your outfit you had to pay that $10. Another concern I have is with the feature that IMVU-E added a few years ago that allowed users to view a developers catalog. I liked the idea of being able to view a disabled creators shop and purchase their products. After a while I realized that this was pretty wrong because those creators could not receive my credits and IMVU removed the ability to purchase products from disabled creators soon after. My issue was that IMVU-E also allowed users to view hidden products in the catalog. That is a massive breach of privacy and I don't know how they are able to do that or if it is even legal. I know personally that products that I have hidden in my shop are hidden for VERY specific reasons and it is no one's business why they are hidden. I believe that IMVU-E made this feature with the best intentions, but there are very serious problems with it. First of all why does this feature really need to exist? The immediate answer I thought of was that creators can use this feature to see if someone uploaded stolen products. That's a good reason. But what does a non creator need this feature for, especially when they can't buy products by disabled creators anymore? This feature is dangerous because it allows other users to steal products that were made by disabled creators and to steal products that were hidden by creators. They added a feature to where Pro status creators can opt out of their hidden products being featured but that does not fix the problem. Thieves are going to steal products regardless if they are hidden or not. And let's assume that you are a hard working creator but for some reason could not achieve pro status, does that mean your privacy does not matter? The feature to view hidden products in someone's catalog should be removed completely. I can admit that I have used that feature to file DMCA Take downs on other users that have stolen my textures, but I am okay with losing that feature if it means the privacy of rule abiding users does not get infringed. IMVU-E states on their opt-out feature that:
"We understand that showing hidden products from your catalog may pose a risk of theft to products that may have otherwise never been found. That is why we are allowing pro developers the ability to opt-out of their catalog being exposed. We are only allowing pro developers to opt out at this time because our research has shown that most abusers of theft and blackmarket items have not reach pro status, and we don't want to give them the ability to hide themselves from being detected by this service." This makes very little sense. You are not promised pro-creator status forever on IMVU. It's something you have to work hard to gain, and work even harder to keep. One slip up and you start losing tier numbers and you can go from level 5+ to level 4 real quick. So what happens to pro-creators who loser their master badge? Does their hidden products get exposed to the public? Will IMVU-E pull another unethical move by charging creators money to have their hidden items blocked from being viewed? I do not believe that the few thieves should ruin it for the many rule following users. Personally speaking I've seen this feature do more harm than good. I'm on Instagram often seeing people who have had their textures ripped and posted for the public to view and use for no legitimate reason. IMVU-E started off as a really nice unofficial extension for IMVU. They provided really useful tools to make a person IMVU experience much more enjoyable, but I think they are setting a dangerous precedent with some of their features. I won't even begin to talk about a feature that they had that would reveal if a user's location. I think IMVU needs to get aggressive with some of these websites that provide features that undermine their authority and their own features that are set to protect users from other users.
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