
Facebook halts Oculus Quest sales in Germany amid privacy concerns - kerng
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/09/facebook-halts-oculus-quest-sales-in-germany-amid-privacy-concerns/
======
nocturnial
The ban isn't about the sale of oculus quest. It's about all oculus devices.

Facebook said all oculus devices would need a facebook account. I know this
statement is overly broad and not (exactly) true but this is the nightmare
scenario oculus users are dreading.

Facebook said there were caveats and exceptions. For example, if you bought it
before date x then you don't need to create a facebook account, etc... The
german privacy commission isn't convinced facebook would/could separate the
purely oculus created facebook accounts from their normal accounts.

Now it becomes a coupling issue. Apparently it's illegal in Germany and I know
this is illegal in Belgium. And if I took a guess it would be illegal in most
countries in the EU.

~~~
lmkg
It violates GDPR, so it's illegal in the EU in general (plus UK &
Switzerland). The relevant parts are Article 7 Paragraph 4, and Recital 43. In
short, consent isn't valid if it's a condition for an unrelated contract.

[https://gdpr-info.eu/art-7-gdpr/](https://gdpr-info.eu/art-7-gdpr/)

[https://gdpr-info.eu/recitals/no-43/](https://gdpr-info.eu/recitals/no-43/)

~~~
vinay427
EDIT: Maybe this wasn't clear, but I was replying specifically to this part in
the parent comment: "violates GDPR, so it's illegal in the EU in general (plus
UK & Switzerland)" as GDPR never specifically applied in Switzerland.

I'm not sure it applies to Switzerland. GDPR at least doesn't seem to apply to
Swiss companies catering to Swiss residents [1], so I'm not sure it would
apply to Facebook/Oculus here. Also, if we're going for completeness EU/EEA is
included as far as I know, not just EU.

[1] [https://www.pwc.ch/en/insights/tax/gdpr-swiss-based-
companie...](https://www.pwc.ch/en/insights/tax/gdpr-swiss-based-
companies.html)

~~~
baby
switzerland is not in EU

~~~
IfOnlyYouKnew
It is, however, member of EFTA, the Single Market Agreement, Schengen, and the
European Conference for the Protection of Spotted Eels (but not the Customs
Union, nor EEA). It also has a host of individual agreements to participate in
Bologna and the like.

As a result, any given EU regulation, especially of the economy, is more
likely than not to also apply to Switzerland.

------
bambax
I was kind of tempted to buy an Oculus headset because a friend of mine had
good things to say about it. But the coupling requirement has made buying it
impossible, as I don't have, never had, and will never have a Facebook
account. One less gadget to worry about.

~~~
jayd16
Can you not just make a throw away account?

~~~
cma
Facebook will typically lock such accounts until you give him pictures of
yourself in your house with your driver's license.

~~~
bilkow
I'm not sure why you're getting downvoted, they actually lock people out
asking for an government ID[0] (AFAIK not necessarily yourself in the photo).

I also know someone who wanted to change their last name (their current one is
already fake) and the system didn't let them without sending an ID.

[0]
[https://www.facebook.com/help/community/question/?id=1016165...](https://www.facebook.com/help/community/question/?id=101616510396306)

~~~
prophesi
Yeah, I created an account a few years ago, since a few of my friends relied
on Messenger / FB Events to coordinate plans. I used anti-tracking plugins, on
mobile I used an unofficial F-Droid client for Messenger, desktop only used
the mbasic.facebook.com

It was probably two months before my account was flagged for "suspicious
activity" and asked that I submit a photo of a government-issued ID, which I
never obliged.

~~~
mroche
You’re lucky. I made it 30 minutes after changing all the privacy settings and
not providing a phone number then signing in on my phone browser. I
accidentally sent in my profile pic for the “suspicious activity” verifier
which is totally on me. Instantly got my account disabled and have been
unsuccessful at recovering it since June 2019 despite several attempts at
sending in my ID as they requested.

However, now the create a new account page says there’s an existing disabled
account with this email address, but the account support portal says one
doesn’t exist! Top notch engineering. Luckily I have my IG account for
Messenger login, but I can’t use it for desktop sign-on’s which is pretty
dumb.

------
hubin
Currently there is a rumor of a new Quest being released at Facebook Connect
September 16.

Walmart and Target also might have "leaked" and confirmed the price of the new
base 64GB version to be only $299 which makes things interesting.

And they haven't really only stopped "selling" them in Germany. They are out
of stock almost everywhere, Walmart, B&H, abt and more.

Renders of the new "Quest" were also leaked by a twitter account with a great
track record when it comes to leaks, the user h0x0d who's account has been
closed by twitter :-)

~~~
pantalaimon
I wonder how similar it's going to be to the Snapdragon XR2 reference design.

------
mark_l_watson
The charge against coupling is valid.

I had almost given up ever using FB last year, perhaps logged in briefly once
a month.

The pan I bought an Oculus Quest (best toy ever!) and I started uploading
videos to FB so I could watch them on my Quest, started buying Quest VR
experiences, etc.

After the purchase, I am logging into FB once a week.

------
cwhiz
It should be considered illegal product bundling for Oculus to require a
Facebook account. Facebook has an extreme monopoly on social media and should
be shattered into a dozen companies.

------
Animats
Ah, good, the EU is serious about enforcing antitrust tying rules.

~~~
xxs
This is a GDPR issue not an anti-trust one. Also it should apply not just to
Germany. Effectively buying the product cannot be tied to given consent for an
unrelated service.

------
mr_blobby
I like the way they suspended sales only in Germany just to get good boy
points from the German authorities.

~~~
drdrey
A more cynical view would be that it is to foster resentment from potential
buyers against the regulatory authorities, "see what they made us do"

~~~
watt
You think we are bootlickers like that, in Germany? You are mistaken.

~~~
mellow2020
Well, there's any kind of person anywhere, anyway.

I think it's not wrong to be pre-emptively wary of that (and prepare arguments
for it), considering the way F.U.D. about "cookie banners" [1] got many people
worked up against a supposedly useless and clueless law that (again,
supposedly) "forces" sites to show such banners -- because their desire to
track, which is the first link in this causal chain, is being ignored or
assumed as given and benign.

[1] banners sites put up because they would prefer to track everyone on the
first visit, rather than having an opt-in link somewhere in the footer for
example.

------
mrgordon
I've been on the fence about buying one and was leaning against it because of
this kind of stuff. In the few weeks since I started following it this kind of
stuff has already started coming up. No thanks. FB loses a customer again.

------
dangus
I sure wish the US had rules around coupling.

I wish this concept went further, too. Hardware products like this should have
to demonstrate a good reason to eschew a no-login option.

