If you thought Facebook’s and Oculus’ week couldn’t get any more busy, you were wrong. Rolling out this week along with the v12 update that includes hand tracking, this newest update will bring new Facebook features exclusively to the Oculus Quest. This is the first we have seen these features since the OC6 event, so there is going to be a learning curve for everyone with a Quest.
Starting today, (or whenever your Quest updates) when you log into Facebook on the Quest, you will be able to access more communication features with your friends and other gaming buddies. It will not only make gaming easier but keeping the headset on for longer periods. These options are, but not limited to:
- Chats, so you can message your Oculus friends in or out of the headset with quick responses to hop into games together
- Join your friends in VR directly from any device with links that open to where your friends are within an app, and see the most popular destinations where people are playing in VR
- User-created Events, so you can organize meetups or multiplayer games with friends
- Share photos, videos, and livestreaming to Facebook, allowing you to share your favorite moments to Facebook Groups from VR
- Parties that any of your Oculus friends can join (previously parties were only invite-only)
- Messenger friends can easily join you in VR when you send them links to join you where you’re playing
This is may seem like a simple added feature, and it is, but the benefits from this update are huge. Not only does this incentive people to use Facebook with their headset more, but it creates more reason to stay inside the headset, which is the ultimate goal of VR companies. Some people may be wondering what kind of privacy this new update has, as Facebook has been suspect when it comes to privacy and information shared.
Privacy Policy Updates
As Facebook regularly does, this will start tracking your activity on the Quest. Their exact quote from their blog is saying that “As part of these changes, Facebook will now use information about your Oculus activity, like which apps you use, to help provide these new social features and more relevant content, including ads. Those recommendations could include Oculus Events you might like to attend or ads for VR apps available on the Oculus Store. These changes won’t affect third-party apps and games, and they won’t affect your on-device data.”
It’s a sneaky way to gather more data from their users, but it shouldn’t impact your day-today-use of the headset. For the highlights of the privacy update, you can check out the notes below.
Privacy Policy Updates
1. What kind of information do we collect?
Depending on which Services you use, we must process different kinds of information from or about you. Here’s how:
- Information You (and others) Give Us. We collect the information you (and others) give us when using our Services. For example:
- When you register to use our Services, we ask for information such as your name, email address, and phone number.
- You will have the ability to add information to your profile after registration.
- If you buy something on or through our Services, we collect information about the transaction. This can include your payment information, purchase activity, and shipping and contact details.
- We collect information about the people, content, and experiences you connect to and how you interact with them across our Services.
- When you post, share or communicate with us or other Oculus users on our Services, we receive and store those communications and information associated with them, such as the date a post was created.
- When you communicate with Oculus, you provide us with information like your email address.
- Depending on which Services you use, you have the option of submitting information about your physical features and dimensions.
- We collect content and information about content you create using our Services, such as your avatar, a picture you post, or an object you sculpt.
- We also collect content and information that other people provide when they use the Services. This can include information about you, like when they send us an abuse report that refers to or contains video of you.
- Information Automatically Collected About You When You Use Our Services. We also collect information automatically when you are connected to our Services. Depending on how you access and use our Services, we collect information such as:
- Information about your interactions with our Services, like information about the people, games, content, apps, features, or other experiences you interact with, including information collected through or from content provided by our third-party partners. For example, we may receive information about in-app purchases you have made in a game provided by a third-party developer;
- Information collected in or through cookies, local storage, pixels, and similar technologies (additional information about these technologies is available at https://www.oculus.com/legal/cookies-pixels-and-other-technologies);
- Information about how you access our Services, including information about the type of device you’re using (such as a headset, PC, TV, mobile, or other connected device), its configuration (such as your operating system and graphics processing unit), your browser, Internet Protocol (“IP”) address, and how your device is performing;
- Information about the features you interact with on our Services. For example, when you use our voice-search features, we process your voice commands so we can deliver the content or feature you’ve requested;
- Certain identifiers that may be unique to you. These identifiers include device and other identifiers, such as those from games and apps you use;
- Information about the games, content, or other apps installed on your device or provided through our Services, including from third parties;
- Location-related information, which can be derived from information such as your device’s IP address. If you’re using a mobile device, some of our Services collect information about the device’s precise location, which is derived from sources such as the device’s GPS signal and information about nearby Wi-Fi networks and cell towers;
- Information about your environment, physical movements, and dimensions when you use an XR device. For example, when you set up the Oculus Guardian System to alert you when you approach a boundary, we receive information about the play area that you have defined;
- Information we receive through device settings you choose, such as your photos or audio content.
- Related companies. Depending on which services you use, we receive information about you from other companies that are within the family of related companies that are legally part of the same group of companies that Oculus is part of, or that become part of that group, such as Facebook, and combine that information with other information we collect about you. View a complete list of related companies at https://www.facebook.com/help/111814505650678.
- Information from other sources. We also receive additional information about you from third parties, including partners that provide us information that is publicly or commercially available, and may combine that information with the other information we collect about you.
You can learn how to access and delete information we collect by visiting the Privacy Center (https://secure.oculus.com/my/privacy).
2. How do we use information?
We use the information as set out below and to provide our Services to you and our partners. Here’s how:
- To provide and personalize our Services. We use the information we collect to provide you with our Services. For example, we use this information to:
- Provide you with hardware, content, games, apps, and other experiences;
- Create accounts and user profiles;
- Communicate with you about our Services;
- Enable user-to-user communications and other social services;
- Provide technical support;
- Notify you about updates to our Services; and
- Customize your experiences based on your activities, including the content, games, apps, and other experiences you interact with, the other online services you use, and other information we collect. This allows us to make your experience unique and relevant to you, for example by showing you content that is most relevant to you.
- To improve and develop your experience and our Services. We also use the information we collect to understand and improve our Services and to develop the XR ecosystem. For example, we use the information to:
- Solicit and analyze input and feedback about our Services;
- Identify and address technical issues on our Services;
- Conduct and learn from research about the ways in which people use our Services; and
- Improve services offered by others, such as third parties that offer content, games, apps and other experiences on our platform.
- To market to you. 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. If you would like to opt out of receiving marketing emails, please visit the Privacy Center (https://secure.oculus.com/my/privacy).
- To promote safety and security. We use the information we collect to help promote safety and security on and off our Services, such as by investigating suspicious activity or violations of our terms or policies and protecting our or others’ rights or property.
- Sharing Within Related Companies. Depending on which services you use, we share information within the family of related companies that are legally part of the same group of companies that Oculus is part of, or that become part of that group, such as Facebook. For a list of our related companies, please see https://www.facebook.com/help/111814505650678.
- Service providers. We share the information we collect with vendors, service providers, researchers and other partners, who work at our direction to support the Services (such as hosting our Services, fulfilling orders, facilitating payments, analyzing the way people use our Services, processing credit card payments, providing customer service, or sending electronic communications for us).
- Other parties in connection with certain business transactions. In the event that the ownership of Oculus (or any portion of our assets) changes as a result of a merger, acquisition, or in the event of a bankruptcy, information from or about you or your device may be transferred to another company.
- Permission. We may share information about you for any other purpose you choose.
- Law enforcement or legal requests. We share information with law enforcement or in response to legal requests in the circumstances outlined in Section 7 below.
We also share de-identified or aggregate data with others. De-identified data means information where we have removed your name and other data that could reasonably be used to identify you. Aggregate data is data that has been combined with other data so that it doesn’t identify any specific person. For example, we provide developers with aggregated statistics about the number of people from a particular region that use our Services, so developers can create content tailored for people in that market.
