
Oculus 'Always On' Services and Privacy Policy May Be a Cause for Concern - stesch
http://uploadvr.com/facebook-oculus-privacy/
======
hacker_9
_" We use the information we collect to send you promotional messages and
content and otherwise market to you on and off our Services. We also use this
information to measure how users respond to our marketing efforts."_

 _" Virtual reality offers an unparalleled level of access to data for
advertisers. Before metrics were measured in how long someone watched a video
or how many times a link was clicked, but with VR you can get far more
granular. An ad executive at Coke, for instance, could tell just how long you
stared at the Coke bottle cleverly placed inside your favorite game as an in-
game ad and use that data to better place it in the game for you next time."_

It amazes me that before this technology is even out and proven to work, and
be a success with consumers, Facebook have already set up monitoring software
to develop even more targeted advertising. At least Microsoft had the decency
to wait a few versions with Windows first...

~~~
raverbashing
At least using Facebook is free

Paying for the Ad Machine? This is ridiculous

~~~
nivla
Well to be fair, you are not paying to use Win 10 and also its a free upgrade.
On the bright side, unlike FB, you can actually install 3rd party apps and
setup firewall to gain that privacy back.

~~~
pdkl95
> install 3rd party apps and setup firewall to gain that privacy back.

Yet you're still paying for Win 10 with either money or market share, thus
signaling your acceptance of that spyware. MS will continue adding
exploitative features until it starts to hurt the only things they care about:
revenue or market share.

~~~
nivla
You are also paying for the Oculus hardware while having no recourse to
privacy even if you wanted. I am not saying Windows 10 doesn't have privacy
issues, but when compared to Facebook's approach, it is far better.

------
vrfcodf
From the Facebook shareholder conference call after the Oculus acquisition 2
years ago [https://soundcloud.com/highway62/internal-facebook-
conferenc...](https://soundcloud.com/highway62/internal-facebook-conference)
(Note that this is an public call, those are their official statements.)

At time stamp 29:19: _There might be advertising in the world, but we need to
figure that down the line. That is probably where the business will come
from..._

And at time stamp 29:50: _If we are successful in building the kind of
platform that we think we can build here, there should be lots of different
monetization opportunities, it is too early to make any concrete plans in
terms of exactly what virtual will be._

Facebook is building the first virtual world. Think about that.

~~~
iammyIP
> Facebook is building the first virtual world. Think about that.

No, Facebook is a glorified chatroom with constant surveillance and ads. The
only thing unique it did was to aggregate enough gravity to become the first
stop for digital peasants of all ages. Facebook is not building anything
virtual first here.

~~~
nitrogen
I think they are talking about the Metaverse.

------
jimrandomh
Can we wait until they actually do or talk about doing something bad before
making a stink about them doing bad things? This is kind of jumping at
phantoms, and doing that too much will mean losing the ability to do it for
real.

Here's what's going on. OVRServer_x64 is, conceptually, a device-driver
component for Oculus. It does things like handle the orientation sensor input
and controls which app appears on the Oculus' display. This has been around
since the very first prototypes, and since it is a piece of hardware, it's not
like they could have gone without.

None of the current titles in the Oculus store have in-game advertising.
There's none in the first-party titles, nor in any of the third-party titles
that I've tried. Instead, they use the traditional business model: pay up
front. They're running a store, called Oculus Home, which competes with Steam.
They know which games and experiences you buy on the store, and are probably
measuring how many hours you spend in each, like Steam does.

And that's it. This statement from the article is straight up false:

> "An ad executive at Coke, for instance, could tell just how long you stared
> at the Coke bottle cleverly placed inside your favorite game as an in-game
> ad and use that data to better place it in the game for you next time."

It's false because the Oculus Rift does not contain eye-tracking (only head-
orientation tracking); because the software infrastructure for measuring that
doesn't exist (though I suppose someone could write it); and because that
isn't Oculus' business model.

~~~
Sir_Substance
>because the software infrastructure for measuring that doesn't exist (though
I suppose someone could write it);

What the hell are you talking about? The endermen in minecraft change behavior
based on whether you are looking at them or not, and minecraft has hardly a
bastion of bleeding edge game engine technology. The difference between making
an enderman attack if you look at it for more then 2 seconds and firing a
metric if you look at a coke bottle for more than two seconds is pretty
minimal.

A metric tool that sends data on how long you keep certain objects within the
center of your FOV can be backed with off the shelf free software[1]. The
infrastructure is commonplace, well tested and used daily for a myriad of
metric related tasks all over the world.

[1] [http://grafana.org/](http://grafana.org/)

~~~
wilg
If the software infrastructure does exist in Minecraft as you say, why isn't
anyone mad about it potentially doing exactly what you describe with the
actual product placements actually present in Minecraft?
([https://store.xbox.com/en-US/Xbox-One/dlc/Minecraft-Xbox-
One...](https://store.xbox.com/en-US/Xbox-One/dlc/Minecraft-Xbox-One-
Edition/582e7bcc-11bc-4702-ab1b-b31566f8e327))

The reason nobody is mad is because there is no evidence anything shady is
going on there. Just like in this case with Oculus.

It's possible for anyone to track pretty much any metric in any software and
then analyze it. So saying it's possible doesn't really mean much.

~~~
pdkl95
> regularly sends updates back to Facebook’s servers.

That _IS_ evidence of something shady going on. A display device does _not_
need to send data over the network. This is _already_ spyware.

And no, the endermen in Minecraft do not send data back to Mojang when they
detect you looking at them. That was obviously a an example of how someone
could exploit head tracking data; it would still require exchanging data with
Facebook... which the article claims OVRServer_x64.exe does.

------
Sir_Substance
I just wanted to buy a computer monitor for my face. I'm paying you $600,
can't I just have that? :(

~~~
karpathy
Might be easiest to think of your privacy as a currency similar to $. The real
cost is 800. They can offer you $600 and 200 in privacy, or they could offer
you $800, which people would throw a fit over and not buy. This is also not
entirely accurate because the raw price is a one-time purchase, while privacy
is hard to upper bound and can even become more valuable later on.

Facebook operates on this extreme: it's completely "free" to use, except you
have to count your privacy, which in fact turns out to be quite valuable
currency. And unfortunately I think we've established several times that at
least for social media or even web or apps in general that the other extreme
of "pay us more of your normal$ and less of your privacy$" doesn't work well
at all.

So it looks like you can't have a "monitor for your face and that's it"
because human psychology.

~~~
ginko
The problem is that they _don't_ offer me the $800 option.

~~~
Sir_Substance
I'd pay that $800.

------
justinclift
"As we shift into a constantly connected state... "

That's a scary thought, if people are generally assuming that's the direction
things will go.

People _need_ time out, to disconnect and re-energise.

A "constantly connected" state seems like it would generate massive burn-out
and/or mental issues. :(

------
Scirra_Tom
They are entering a new market and trying to win market share, I'm surprised
at this vulnerable time they are doing this so early. I think a big segment of
their target market will be more sensitive to this stuff as supposed to
general population at this early stage as well.

~~~
stesch
I'm expecting this to blow up in Germany. We are already very critical of
Facebook and like our privacy. (Google Chrome here still hasn't fully
recovered from the rough start.)

My employer doesn't care about people's privacy. But when there's no market
share then there's no need to support the product.

------
ajmurmann
Well, this makes it easier for me to decide which VR headset to buy.

~~~
iammyIP
what are the alternatives?

~~~
pearle
HTC Vive is one alternative but it's not out yet.

~~~
hanney
The HTC Vive is released to the wild April 5th (tomorrow!)

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pier25
So you pay $600 and you can't even turn that off?

And I thought free to play was bad...

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maxander
Its a preposterous move in a new market and borderline insulting for a $600
product, but on one level it makes sense; if there's any demographic that's
worth aggressively advertising to, its the demographic of people with the
money and unrestrained enthusiasm to immediately shell out almost a grand on a
first-generation luxury product.

------
Fuzzwah
Off topic: this is a horrible web design anti-pattern... a big long page in an
iframe that somehow completely messes with my scroll wheel?

No thanks.

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venomsnake
Why does a gimmiky monitor needs internet access. And why any sane person will
allow it to pass trough the firewall.

