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If Logged into Facebook, Oculus VR Data Will Now Be Used for Ads
- vermilingua 7y agoA surprise to exactly nobody. When are people going to stop rewarding the exploitative behavior of Facebook and its offspring?
- zxcb1 7y agoYes. However, it is not apparent which inferences are possible to make with this kind of sensor data. How invasive might this become?
- ctack 7y agoThey'll classify how people move and join that with profiles they've already created on Facebook. They'll try to figure out if you have any kind of disability.
- mosselman 7y agoIt is not exactly clear to me whether you are down playing the implications or not, but lets assume you are: If this weren't invasive, they wouldn't be doing it. What use would random data be to Facebook? Also, it is irrelevant: if I buy a VR set I want to use it for whatever I see fit, not get hooked into some data collection machine. How is it that we have come to accept that in order to use products, that we buy even, we have to hand over lots of data?
- zxcb1 7y agoI'm not. I believe that this kind of data in combination with machine learning makes for the perfect storm. While users may not understand the difference from before.
- Nasrudith 7y agoSounds like machine learning in this case would lead to GIGO as essentially automated superstition. It would get what, use time, how much time is spent moving using it and maybe height data and try to map to products the advertisers want to sell?
- moron4hire 7y agoThere are cameras and microphones on the things
- classified 7y ago> How invasive might this become? Brain-wave-scanning kind of invasive. FB (and advertising in general) will continue to become ever more invasive until it meets a limiting factor. That limiting factor will possibly be legislation (just not in the US because worshiping the Dollar overrides anything and everything else).
- bagacrap 7y agoDo we know the first thing about how brain waves correlate to any real world properties of a person? If Facebook or anyone else can crack brain waves, ie in a sense "read your mind", it seems like serving ads is the least of our worries, but also pretty exciting in terms of the potential positive applications.
- wizzwizz4 7y agoWe've already got "EEG to categorised-eyeball-images" technology; in fact, that was a relatively primitive application of neural nets. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/787101v2.full https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/787101v2.full No, I don't think it unlikely that the next-gen Oculus might do this.
- sudosysgen 7y agoWell, system that has brain wave data and full information on your visual feed and body position and movement can do quite a bit of correlation
- LegitShady 7y agoAs invasive as they can convince people to buy
- ComodoHacker 7y agoThe article talks about 3D maps of user's environment. One can infer what kind of furniture and home appliances you have and use, for example.
- vonmoltke 7y agoThe article also says Facebook claims that data is remaining local and will not be used for advertising.
- ComodoHacker 7y agoFacebook is well known for such claims, about Instagram, WhatsApp and other things. Data inference may very well be done locally.
- vonmoltke 7y agoSo you think they are lying in a legally-binding document? If that's the case, they would be doing this already and this change would be irrelevant.
- ComodoHacker 7y agoThe article cites answers they had received from Facebook, not "legally-binding document".
- wolco 7y agoThe VR data is local but the fact that you own the device gets sent so ads can be displayed targetting VR owners. So they are not breaking any laws while still targetting you for owning the unit.
- UweSchmidt 7y agoThey won't. People buy what's in the store / is marketed and expect products to work, functionally, but also in the greater context, in their effect on society as a whole. Voting with the dollar does not generally work to steer corporate behaviour.
- wavefunction 7y agoAnd facebook is not a traditional corporate structure so holding facebook/Zuck accountable can only be accomplished via legislation.
- Nasrudith 7y agoYeah in the same sense your vote doesn't decide the election. It certainly has worked wiith many missteps fallen into obscurity. Marketing is a post-facto category for success. If everything is done right for a campaign but the CEO says something outrageous it is all undone like the infamous Gerald Rattner incident.
- workthrowaway 7y agothe problem, as i see it, is not with data collection itself. because the larger public 1. does not care 2. does not seem concerned. 3. the collected data is deemed harmless to the user. what worries me is the sampling itself. or how diverse the sample is. using VR users data to draw any conclusion is misrepresenting the larger population. now if we are all into VR or use it, this might be different...
- Grustaf 7y agoWhy is it a problem that facebook gets skewed data when spying on its users? It won’t give me any sleepless nights, that’s for sure.
- thejohnconway 7y agoMost people do not understand how much is collected, how it can be connected, or how it is shared with random companies with no accountability. Often they are fairly shocked when specific examples are brought to light. But there are lot of problems in the world, and none of us can be sure where to rank this one.
- deogeo 7y agoGood news! China has solved the problem by watching everyone, finally giving us what we all want - crushing levels of omnipresent surveillance, without any diversity-harming biased sampling. Because that's the worst part about surveillance - not how it's (often legally) abused by power, but how it's not fair for diversity.
- zamalek 7y agoThe DK2 was the last Oculus device I owned precisely due to this. I would have absolutely purchased the CV1 were it not for the FB acquisition. There is something subconsciously intimate about the movements of my head. The idea of FB getting off to that (obvious to everyone, except the willfully ignorant, that they eventually would) is incredibly creepy.
- kruczek 7y agoSome already stopped rewarding such behavior. It's the precise reason why I chose Vive over Oculus.
- asutekku 7y agoIt’s Facebook’s service, what did you expect. Also, recommending products based on your past experiences is something pretty much every service provides.
- rchaud 7y ago> recommending products based on your past experiences I've recommended music and movies to people without any prior compensation from the companies that put those products out. What Facebook is doing is advertising. "Personalized recommendations" is marketing doublespeak for "pay to play".
- AndrewThrowaway 7y agoAt first I read it as "will not be used". "Yet" I thought to myself. Then I reread the title. "Oh" I though to myself.
- tyfon 7y agoAnd this is the reason I never touch anything that has a connection to Facebook. No surprise really but it irks me as I wanted the rift some time ago but then Facebook bought it. Luckily it seems like Valve Index will be a good alternative.
- kgwxd 7y agoValve won't collect data?
- tyfon 7y agoThey might, but they don't have facebooks apparatus or motivation for turning it into ads on unrelated web pages.
- bagacrap 7y agoDo they need to own the apparatus? I search for a product on Google, I click on a search result, navigating to a retailer's site. That site knows not only what I'm looking at but what I was searching for. By way of third party cookies it knows who I am and it sends that info back to FB and the next time I'm on Instagram I'm getting ads from that category. The retailer I visited didn't have to own the FB ad network to play a role.
- lm28469 7y agoI don't think valve does any of that, and even if it did it has access to way less data then FB (which owns instagram and whatsapp) which basically know your location, who you talk to and when, your centers of interest, political orientation, &c. Valve, at least for now, is mostly concerned about selling games. Collecting data in itself isn't bad, imho the issue is the centralisation and what the data is used for. I'd feel much more confident giving a little data to Valve than enlarging the humongous dataset of facebook.
- dceddia 7y ago> what I was searching for I think you’re saying that Google sends the search terms to the site you visit? It doesn’t do that, at least not for a bunch of years now. As a site owner you can get aggregate ideas of what queries lead people to particular pages, but you can’t tie it to individual visitors.
- mnw21cam 7y agohttps://outline.com/Fur6Bq https://outline.com/Fur6Bq for those of us who don't like looking at a blank black page.
- aedron 7y agoEye tracking is adtech's wet dream for a long time. It's like heatmaps on steroids. And VR glasses are the perfect platform for it.
- sp332 7y agoJohn Carmack steps down from being CTO, and a month later this happens.
- swebs 7y agoNow which one was the cause, and which was the effect?
- sp332 7y agoI mean I don't remember him being loudly against this. It could be more of a difference of priorities. But it's still interesting. Even if they're not directly connected, two big changes in a row could mean there are more to come.
- dangoor 7y agoCarmack does not appear to be against this: https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1204938668680634368 https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1204938668680634368
- LegitShady 7y agoThis has nothing to do with Carmack. Carmack being part of Oculus is a stain on Carmack and his reputation. Don't look to Carmack for moral guidance - he sold his soul to Facebook to develop VR and failed.
- dangoor 7y agoWhen I bought an Oculus Quest, the fact that Oculus is owned by Facebook was slightly bothersome, but I honestly don't care a whole lot about this particular data at this particular time (basically just game playing). It's Facebook Horizon[1] that's the worrisome thing. I'm pretty sure they're trying to build the OASIS from Ready Player One. [1]: https://www.oculus.com/facebookhorizon/ https://www.oculus.com/facebookhorizon/
- LegitShady 7y agoIt's interesting that you say the only data being collected is what you play and when. Why do you think that? They have a lot of lose and movement data from you I bet theyve been spending a lot of time trying to develop inferences you can make from it.
- dangoor 7y agoSure. They know I play Beat Saber and move pretty quickly while doing so. Maybe they'll try to sell me exercise stuff (though I rarely interact with Facebook and my browser setup is kind of aggressive when it comes to them). They also know I'm shorter than Darth Vader. They know the size of a couple of our rooms. I acknowledge there is data they can attempt to extract value from, but that data just doesn't concern me. As VR expands, particularly with Horizon, I will be a lot more wary.
- LegitShady 7y ago>I acknowledge there is data they can attempt to extract value from, but that data just doesn't concern me This feels like a weird non computer person answer of "I don't understand why I should be worried about metadata it doesn't concern me"
- dangoor 7y agoLet me put it another way: there are many things we choose to do which generate data and provide that data to various entities. We have to decide which data we're willing to share with whom and for what benefits. I know some people who, at least as of a couple of years ago, had dumbphones from which they'd remove the batteries when not in use so that their location couldn't be tracked. I have an iPhone. I've got Comcast internet at home and don't use a VPN. I have a Facebook account (which I access in Firefox only using the facebook container). I don't use gmail, and my primary browser isn't logged into Google and has various bits of tracking protection. So it's a pretty conscious choice. Maybe it's misguided, but I just think the data Facebook is getting from my Oculus Quest is pretty low value. Lower value than Likes, for example.
- CelestialTeapot 7y agoSure, after spending hundreds of dollars on a device, it only seems fair that the vendor exploit your personal information so that credit companies and anyone willing and able to buy the data can compile a dossier on you.
- patrickaljord 7y agoFacebook does not sell data.
- naniwaduni 7y agoMostly because they find it more profitable to maintain their exclusivity on the data itself and sell only ad placements.
- deogeo 7y agoNeither did the Stasi.
- Rebelgecko 7y agohttps://about.fb.com/news/2018/12/facebooks-partners/ https://about.fb.com/news/2018/12/facebooks-partners/
- pavel_lishin 7y agoOf course. Why sell it once, when you can keep renting it out forever?
- tripzilch 7y agoAnd when you buy a Photoshop subscription, Adobe doesn't technically sell you software, either.
- yc_2345 7y agoI am not sure what is the big deal here. When WhatsApp improved its popularity by claiming "privacy is important, no ads" etc and then did a U turn it was actually noteworthy and newsworthy. I don't think Oculus ever made such claims. They were happy to "sell out" [1]. If anything, they seem to be proud members of the Facebook cult [2]. If you bought the Oculus, you knew exactly what you were getting. Also, a side note: I just suppose that everyone who supports Facebook at this point benefit from Facebook's profits in some way (e.g. FB employees, FB ecosystem consultants, close partners such as Microsoft etc) and automatically discount their opinions about Facebook. [1] https://www.vox.com/2014/3/25/11624928/facebook-buys-oculus-vr-for-2-billion https://www.vox.com/2014/3/25/11624928/facebook-buys-oculus-... [2] https://variety.com/2019/gaming/news/facebook-oculus-privacy-messages-controllers-1203188863/ https://variety.com/2019/gaming/news/facebook-oculus-privacy...
- colejohnson66 7y ago> Also, a side note: I just suppose that everyone who supports Facebook at this point benefit from Facebook's profits in some way (e.g. FB employees, FB ecosystem consultants, close partners such as Microsoft etc) and automatically discount their opinions about Facebook. I was gonna upvote you, but this was unnecessary. It’s possible for someone to be positive towards something you see as a negative. People hate Trump and he has supporters. Whether you agree with them or not, not all of them are benefiting from the Trump Administration
- tabula 7y agoYeah, not to mention that you can benefit from FB without being one of their employees or close partners. Just buy some stock next time it crashes bc they get caught using data they weren’t supposed to!
- adgineer 7y agoFB ads engineer here. Every time I read these threads, I'm 1. Flattered by how sophisticated HN thinks our systems are (they're not. and we're not that smart. FB's A-team stopped working on ads a long time ago) 2. Entertained by how HN thinks ad targeting works (we don't want to know everything about YOU. we want to know basic info about all of our users.) Hypertargeting doesn't work. Targeting small audiences doesn't provide marketing scale and is extremely expensive. The goal is to have the biggest possible audience, while still applying one or two critical filters. You could hit all 1000 people in a pool for $100 each, or you can hit 1000 people in a pool of 1 million for 50 cents each. The main priority here is to enable "Show ads to people who own an Oculus" level targeting. This means that people selling VR-adjacent services, products, and content can reliably advertise to their core market without wasting money on non-users. Or maybe they can filter out that segment to show different ads to non-users that convince them to buy their first device. I know most on HN hate any level of targeting, but this has a massive benefit to the VR ecosystem because it allows VR companies to reach their customers much more effectively and sell more products. FB is actually stripping away features from our targeting system and removing inputs because we spend too much compute power ($$) driving optimizations that don't have any material impact on delivery value. Basic is better. There's no meaningful business value to capturing biometrics or pictures of things in your home. Also, ethics. We do actually think about that a lot these days - it just took us a while to clean up short-sighted product decisions made a decade ago.
- fhood 7y agoIs there a name for this phenomena? Where we know that everybody blunders around like a caveman at our workplaces but assume infinite sophistication for everyone elses.
- awinter-py 7y agonovelist michael crichton named it 'gell-mann amnesia' in a news-reading context
- tripzilch 7y agowell there's this great quote from the movie "Cube" (1997): There is no conspiracy. Nobody is in charge. It's a headless blunder operating under the illusion of a master plan.
- sli 7y agoSo... is anyone actually surprised by this?
- dang 7y agoWe changed the url from https://uploadvr.com/facebook-ads-vr/ https://uploadvr.com/facebook-ads-vr/ to an article that links to the relevant announcement.
- just_myles 7y agoWell you have the option of not signing in with your facebook account. Good thing about this market is that there are other options out there and presumably more coming in the future.
- throwaway48544 7y agoYes, I have to give credit there for allowing it to be an option at least.
- jammygit 7y agoAmazing how invasive such an expensive product is. I sold mine 2-3 years ago and still feel icky about when I read the privacy policy
- welluu89 7y agoBut the it would be used for FB ads? So, what's the difference really?