The existence of 'Spy.pet' that extracts more than 4 billion messages from Discord and sells them for a fee has come to light
The British news site The Register has reported on Spy.pet, a service that claims to sell access to more than 14,000 Discord chat servers, extracting more than 4 billion messages exchanged by nearly 620 million users.
Site claims to have harvested 4B+ Discord chats, all on sale • The Register
Spy.pet reportedly launched its service in November 2023 and extracts activity from Discord servers and their users in a manner that is unlikely to have been consented to by users.
While it's unclear how the data will be used, The Register said, 'It raises the possibility that such chat collection could be done using bots for a variety of purposes, including training AI models, if not surveillance.'
Spy.pet outlines some of the data it collects, including user profiles and the nicknames and pronouns they contain, accounts connected to other platforms such as Steam and GitHub, Discord servers joined, and public messages.
You have to pay to view your private data, and you have to buy 'credits' to access conversation archives and search servers without waiting. One credit costs 1 cent, so it costs 10 credits to access a profile, for example. Only virtual currency can be used for payment.
There is also an “Enterprise” option that allows users to contact the operators of Spy.pet, asking: “Are you interested in training an AI model using Discord messages? Or are you a group of Federal Agents looking for a new source of information?”
Spy.pet had previously accepted donations via a Coinbase link, but as of the time of writing, it was no longer functioning. Based on a post on the official Spy.pet blog, The Register speculates that this is likely because Coinbase has banned Spy.pet.
The post also mentioned that Spy.pet had been hit by a DDoS attack in February 2024 but managed to weather it. 'All these attacks caused minimal damage to me personally and to the website as a whole. As a result of these efforts, downtime was only 50 minutes,' Spy.pet's operators wrote.
The EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Articles 6, 8, and 17 each contain provisions on consent-based data tracking, parental consent for minors' data tracking, and the right to be forgotten, so The Register points out that 'Spy.pet may want to review at least three articles of the GDPR.'
US authorities are also keeping a close eye on the handling of children's personal information, and in November 2023, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed a lawsuit against Meta over children's privacy.
The Register reached out to Spy.pet but did not receive a response at the time of writing. Meanwhile, Discord responded, 'If we determine that conduct violates our Terms of Service and Community Guidelines, we take appropriate action to enforce our policies. As this is an ongoing investigation, we will not be commenting further.'
Continued
'Spy Pet,' which spied on over 600 million Discord users, is shut down, Discord is considering legal action - GIGAZINE
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• Discord | 'My Discord conversation history is being sold without my permission. Should I continue to use it? Should I stop using it? Is there a problem? Is there a problem?' | GIGAZINE
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