Facebook is spying on Oculus Rift Users

[Misanthrope]

2 hours ago, aisle9 said:

And people were expecting Facebook not to do this?

Notch was right

[zacRupnow]

Did nobody expect this is the whole damn reason Facebook bought Oculus?!

[Doobeedoo]

Who would've thought?!





/s

[ChineseChef]

While I plan to skip V1 of both VR headsets, is the Vive more of just a display?  Or like the Rift, is it software+Display? 

 

The only real way to get rid of the possibility of tracking, is to essentially just have it be a dumb display. But this is difficult simply based on the fact that the device needs to talk back to your computer so it can tell your computer where you are looking.  Really, I see this as a wait and see issue.

 

Best case, you can turn it off, more likely you will have to use firewall or something to block it, worst case it straight up won't work if it can't phone home.

[Lynx]

yet to come Advertising on your FACE! .lol

 

well, facebook being facebook.

 

 

[JAKEBAB]

6 hours ago, niofalpha said:

 

I'm sorry, I expected people to have the ability to use a google search, and I didn't feel like doing the OP's work for him.

 

http://uploadvr.com/oculus-responds-to-facebook-privacy-concerns/

Nice little detail you missed from the unedited version down the bottom:

 

"Lastly,  Facebook owns Oculus and helps run some Oculus services, such as elements of our infrastructure, but we’re not sharing information with Facebook at this time. We don’t have advertising yet and Facebook is not using Oculus data for advertising – though these are things we may consider in the future."

[Briggsy]

1 hour ago, JAKEBAB said:

Nice little detail you missed from the unedited version down the bottom:

 

"Lastly,  Facebook owns Oculus and helps run some Oculus services, such as elements of our infrastructure, but we’re not sharing information with Facebook at this time. We don’t have advertising yet and Facebook is not using Oculus data for advertising – though these are things we may consider in the future."

wouldn't surprise me at all. I own a DK2 and in the Oculus Home environment there is a large banner floating above the "store" that says the DK2 is not supported, but that could just as easily be an advertisement to buy the CV1, or some stupid ad asking me to friend mark zuckerberg. Right now Valve is smoking Oculus in terms of software and usability, and needing to run Oculus Home to then run SteamVR is a little annoying and causes the occasional glitch in the matrix. If they are considering adding 3rd party advertising, its just another bullet hole in their shoe.

 

 -----------

 

As far as harvesting data on user behaviour, that craps been going on forever in gaming. Most of the time its beneficial to developers to know where people will look, how they react, what content they skip and what they enjoy (including 180/360 porn i bet). I think the spying is the least of my worries for gaming, but using data to figure out where I look the most and placing a giant ad there is not cool. Yeah, the Vive is sounding better and better, even if it costs more.

[PerfectTemplar]

14 hours ago, TetraSky said:

I was too. Then I saw the Canadian pricing and I was all "NOPE". At $1150 CAD, I'm gonna wait for gen 2... or 3.

Hah, In Australia it's about $1450 AUD. Which is $1150 CAD FYI. Apparently it costs me $20 to ship a PC full tower from America to Australia but $300 to ship a headset

[Nowak]

Who saw this coming? Say "I".

 

I.

[Sky Daddy]

SIGH

 

Oculus servers use Facebooks domain, when Oculus Home/runtime is installed the it pings the server with very little information (bytes). When you put on the rift it automatically launches Oculus Home, this is likely the reason for the pinging. 

 

TLDR, the amount of data transmitted is too little to be of any significance.

[Misanthrope]

1 hour ago, Sky Daddy said:

SIGH

 

Oculus servers use Facebooks domain, when Oculus Home/runtime is installed the it pings the server with very little information (bytes). When you put on the rift it automatically launches Oculus Home, this is likely the reason for the pinging. 

 

TLDR, the amount of data transmitted is too little to be of any significance.

How do you know that? It's still possible that most of the time there's just no new information ready for transmit and waits to transfer the bigger chunk at a later time. Unless you watch it for months on end you can't really assert nothing else but a ping ever happens.

[LAwLz]

7 hours ago, Sky Daddy said:

SIGH

 

Oculus servers use Facebooks domain, when Oculus Home/runtime is installed the it pings the server with very little information (bytes). When you put on the rift it automatically launches Oculus Home, this is likely the reason for the pinging. 

 

TLDR, the amount of data transmitted is too little to be of any significance.

That would make sense, except users are reporting that it sends data continuously even when Oculus Home isn't running, and it does not just send a few bytes.

[ChineseChef]

4 hours ago, LAwLz said:

That would make sense, except users are reporting that it sends data continuously even when Oculus Home is running, and it does not just send a few bytes.

Did you mean isn't?

 

Either way, "just a few bytes" can still be a lot of data if properly formatted @Sky Daddy.  If you predefine how everything needs to be formatted, you can extrapolate large amounts of data from a very small set of data.  You only need to send the values, not the definitions or parameters or any other info.  GPS coordinates are a very small series of numbers, but you can extrapolate a huge amount of data from them, and would be extremely small to send. (just as an example)

[Trik'Stari]

This kind of thing should legally require express written consent. Not "hide this somewhere in 10 pages of legal garbage that no one will read and then require them to agree to it to use the product"

 

That, or legally require "telemetry" to be optional for end users.

[ChineseChef]

Just now, Trik'Stari said:

This kind of thing should legally require express written consent. Not "hide this somewhere in 10 pages of legal garbage that no one will read and then require them to agree to it to use the product"

I completely agree on the requiring it to be in plain language, and short and obvious.  But I don't see a problem with "must agree to use product", as the product is hardly a necessity.  As long as the terms and conditions are spelled out such that the layman can easily and accurately understand and explain what conditions are being agreed to.

[Orangeator]

21 hours ago, TheRetiredSlave said:

Ever noticed how your videogame characters breathing doesn't match up to your own? Now with Oculus Respire™ Technology, you can! To enhance your immersion in the VR experience, now your breaths can have an affect on your gameplay! You know how you "hold your breath" to steady your rifle scope shooters? Now you can do that by literally holding your breath! 

Breath data is "anonomized" before it's sold to medical device companies.

 

Honestly besides that small tid bit at the bottom, holding your breath for sniping would be pretty awesome. 

[Trik'Stari]

2 minutes ago, ChineseChef said:

I completely agree on the requiring it to be in plain language, and short and obvious.  But I don't see a problem with "must agree to use product", as the product is hardly a necessity.  As long as the terms and conditions are spelled out such that the layman can easily and accurately understand and explain what conditions are being agreed to.

In that case, if we are going to allow them to require telemetry to use a product, they must be held legally accountable for keeping said information and connection secure.

 

If someone manages to hack into it, and gets your information, or is able to spy on you, then you can sue them (the company) into the dirt for not maintaining a secure connection.

[ChineseChef]

14 minutes ago, Trik'Stari said:

In that case, if we are going to allow them to require telemetry to use a product, they must be held legally accountable for keeping said information and connection secure.

 

If someone manages to hack into it, and gets your information, or is able to spy on you, then you can sue them (the company) into the dirt for not maintaining a secure connection.

I can completely get behind that.  I think that all these data breaches need to be taken way more seriously.  I can see in the very near future the way things are going, everyone will have had all their data compromised to the point where identity theft of literally anyone will be possible.  And not only that, it will start to become common place due to the sheer ease and availability of the data needed.

 

We are going to have to start having personal digital certificates and signatures.  Or soon enough no one will have good credit, everyone will be fighting legal battles about false loans or purchases.  It likely won't get fixed though until the rich and powerful start to get affected, since us peasants don't actually matter to the law makers.

[Loleo]

23 minutes ago, Trik'Stari said:

In that case, if we are going to allow them to require telemetry to use a product, they must be held legally accountable for keeping said information and connection secure.

 

If someone manages to hack into it, and gets your information, or is able to spy on you, then you can sue them (the company) into the dirt for not maintaining a secure connection.

Which is why I still dislike Steam and Valve for what they did and their half-assed apology.

What they did was actually ilegal-ish.

[jaggysnake57]

half the people on here bitching about privacy use freaking android.....google FFS

[BroliviaWilde]

19 hours ago, LAwLz said:

I can't find their response, and you did not include it either. Got a link?

 

Someone in the Reddit thread also pointed this out in the TOS:

Wait, cookies and pixels? That sounds weird. Let's check it out:

So wait... If I buy an Oculus Rift they will use flash cookies to collect info about me and "improve their marketing efforts"? Oh and "understand how people use our Services" as well. Yeah.. That's bullshit and does not belong on a virtual reality headset. But what are these pixels they referred to?

Oh, so it allows Facebook to track you when you browse the Internet. I'm sorry if I am stupid, but I don't see why Oculus want to see which web pages I look at, or how that will improve my VR experience when I for example play games.

 

I would not raise my pitchfork just yet though. I don't have a Rift so I can't analyze the connection, and I did not see anyone in the Reddit thread doing it either, so maybe it is harmless data? I very much doubt it, but I like having evidence when I call a company terrible and evil.

 

Side note: Reading this thread right now is pretty funny. So many people blindly trusting Palmer and Zuckerberg.

 

I think part of their goal is product placement.  With VR, it potentially will allow them to not only place products in the game/app, but also allow them to see if you looked directly at it and for how long.

[LAwLz]

1 hour ago, Trik'Stari said:

This kind of thing should legally require express written consent. Not "hide this somewhere in 10 pages of legal garbage that no one will read and then require them to agree to it to use the product"

 

That, or legally require "telemetry" to be optional for end users.

Fun fact: You would need to spend about 250 hours a year reading privacy policies if you actually were to sit down and read every single one you accept through the course of a year. That's just the privacy policy by the way. Terms of Service are even longer.

 

I think it is pretty safe to say that our current system is completely broken and needs to have some good regulations.

 

 

36 minutes ago, jaggysnake57 said:

half the people on here bitching about privacy use freaking android.....google FFS

Completely difference scenarios because Google was not a startup that got crowdfunded, bought by Facebook and then tried to calm everyone down by saying nothing would change. The world is not black and white.

[Giddyguy]

Its facebook, they harvest data. Its what they do (queue Geico commercial).

To me this explains why they bought Oculus in the first place, its another (and new/great) source of information.

[Benergy]

17 minutes ago, Giddyguy said:

Its facebook, they harvest data. Its what they do (queue Geico commercial).

To me this explains why they bought Oculus in the first place, its another (and new/great) source of information.

Listening to people breathing heavily during Miku private time? 

 

I can see Oculus having (they seem to already have) some serious PR problems.

I hope they don't choose the EA route and ignore all the bad press, since with good enough advertising people will still buy the products.

 

I wonder if they'd be better or worse off without the Facebook acquisition - they might not have been financially strong enough to even last this long.

[AnnoyedShelf]

Who cares? Just make a script that disables the service when you're not using your oculus rift...  I get that people are offended that they'd do this, but really, there's an easy fix.