Facebook halts Oculus Quest sales in Germany amid privacy concerns

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/09/facebook-halts-oculus-quest-sales-in-germany-amid-privacy-concerns/

by kerng • 6 years ago

169 77 6 years ago

mr_blobby• 6 years ago

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

drdrey• 6 years ago

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• 6 years ago

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

IfOnlyYouKnew2• 6 years ago

That's sort of reminiscent of the British alt-right's idea that the German car industry would be running to Merkel demanding her to pressure the EU into giving them a sweetheart deal.

As it turns out (or, more accurately: as people with a clue foretold from the beginning), this overestimated the willing ness of car executives to prioritise shareholder value at the expense of all else, the car industry's lobbying power, and Merkel's power in the EU.

Here, I'd similarly predict that Facebook is going to end up with most of the blame. People aren't entirely clueless, GDPR has quite a bit of support, and Facebook is only slightly above soggy bread in popularity.

But, in any case, a few thousand gamers, many of them under 18, in one country, wouldn't be able to get a law change. The EU also doesn't usually make small adjustments by passing new legislation as many other parliaments do. Instead, they do one huge thing like GDPR every decade or so (per sector).

bambax• 6 years ago

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.

sneak3• 6 years ago

Do you use Instagram or WhatsApp?

jodrellblank3• 6 years ago

Presumably not, because "I don't have, never had, and will never have a Facebook account" covers all things which need a Facebook account, which you know those things do or you wouldn't be mentioning them trying to "gotcha". And if you know it, someone who opposes Facebook that strongly surely also knows it.

jayd16• 6 years ago

Can you not just make a throw away account?

cma2• 6 years ago

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

Nextgrid2• 6 years ago

The problem with creating a Facebook account is that you have to agree to their ToS & privacy policy and thus give them legal permission ("consent" in GDPR terms) to stalk you in every way possible and they are very good at that (in fact they already have a "shadow profile" on you, but as long as you haven't agreed to the terms they are doing so in breach of the law).

If you really want to use a throwaway account and have a chance to escape their surveillance engine, use it on a separate machine, VPN'd to a separate network (where none of your real traffic ends up) and do not do anything on that machine that can be correlated to your real activity (no playing with friends for example).

txsoftwaredev• 6 years ago

This is what I did as I had deleted my Facebook account years ago. I haven't run into any issues so far and it's been working with my Oculus.

snapetom• 6 years ago

Don't they require a cell phone? I got rid of Facebook years ago, but they have my phone number tied to that old account.

I was going to get a Quest for Star Wars Squadrons until this came out. I don't care how much more the Vive is or how many features it's behind. Not worth reactivating FB for it.

dathinab4• 6 years ago

Leagally no.

They legally require you to give them honest/correct personal information.

Practically maybe.

But there is all the pairing with phone etc. requirement.

There are also all the information they likely will collect about usage patters, interactions and your PC. So if you don't also use a isolated throwaway PC/console account and don't use social features you can be sure they will be able to somewhat link your information anyway.

It not just about forcing increased FB marked share.

It's also about an additional source of information they can link and combine.

(Due to GDPR they are quite restrict about what data Oculus can share with the rest of FB.)

scaryclam2• 6 years ago

You could get a Valve Index instead. That's not tied to anything IIRC and is at least as good as the latest oculus headset.

warp• 6 years ago

That needs a powerful gaming PC though.

The whole reason the Oculus Quest is so popular is because it is a standalone device.

pdehaan2• 6 years ago

The Quest is unfortunately still a bit unique as the only standalone 6DoF headset. Edit: not truly unique as pointed out.

The Index is more than double the cost for something that requires spending more money for a computer to run the whole setup.

...not that that's for nothing, the results are better than any of Oculus' products graphically. But it's a different product.

baby2• 6 years ago

I suggest getting a facebook account just for the Oculus quest, because it's bomb!

oh_sigh• 6 years ago

Just make a John Smith account with a throwaway protonmail account. Not a big deal.

kadoban• 6 years ago

Not a big deal until they notice and ban your account, or randomly decide to require more info like you phone number or drivers license. Then who knows if your purcashed hardware or games are even usable anymore.

zmmmmm• 6 years ago

People don't seem to realize how much things have changed on this front. Facebook now uses a whole lot of techniques to monitor new accounts, important aspects of which are that you post things, add realistic (and connected) friends, etc. If your new account does not do those things it will be locked and you will be asked to provide government ID to prove it is really you.

arwineap2• 6 years ago

Tried, they ask for phone verification

hubin• 6 years ago

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• 6 years ago

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

nacs• 6 years ago

I'm guessing it's also going to have the forced Facebook login so a no-go.

Animats• 6 years ago

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

xxs• 6 years ago

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.

nocturnial• 6 years ago

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.

lmkg2• 6 years ago

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/recitals/no-43/

vinay4272• 6 years ago

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...

dathinab4• 6 years ago

Wasn't there also the think that the German Monopoly commission allowed the merge (in the German marked) only under certain conditions/guarantees Facebook had to gave which the change to require Facebook for anything close to full usage of an Oculus VR headset violates?

It's also not the first time that Facebook told (legally binding) the monopoly one thing and then did another thing being like "Uh we give a shit about German and Eu law the penalties are to small".

Then there is GDPR.

So I wouldn't be surprised if it's partially because they have problems with putting up a "user contract" which isn't blown up directly into their face. Which allows them to (try to) wriggle out of constraints.

Honestly while some EU countries still back FB (because profit) in many countries FB has lost all/most patience and goodwill from the law keepers.

Also fun side note as far as I know FB also promised the founder of Oculus that they would not do exactly that (require a FB account for social features). Sure it's not legally binding but just another of a very large pill of anecdotes about how FB can not be trusted at all and given Marks role in it you can pretty much extend that to him to, which IMHO isn't surprising if you look into the (early) history of FB...

EDIT: Formulation/Spelling.

363638273• 6 years ago

I don't think it's a matter of penalties being light really, if the EU hits too hard it'll just turn into a trade dispute. I think the much more likely attitude is "what are they going to do, build something better?" which isn't really an unfair mindset given germany, and more broadly Europe's, dismal history with competing at this kind of stuff.

arwineap2• 6 years ago

For example, if you bought it before date x then you don't need to create a facebook account, etc...

They let you use the device, but you cannot accept friend invites, even from other people "grandfathered" in

A little frustrating to say the least.

mark_l_watson• 6 years ago

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• 6 years ago

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.

dangus• 6 years ago

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.

mrgordon• 6 years ago

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.

Facebook halts Oculus Quest sales in Germany amid privacy concerns

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