It’s happened again. Facebook has broken a promise made by Oculus founder Palmer Luckey when he sold the company to the social network in 2014 that the VR headset would not target you with ads.
In a blog last month, Facebook announced that ads would be coming to its Oculus headset in a trial, starting with Blaston from Resolution Games and “a couple other developers that will be rolling out over the coming weeks.”
But shortly afterwards and after a fierce backlash from gamers, Resolution Games pulled out of the trial, saying the game "isn't the best fit" for in-game advertising. However, Resolution did admit that ads might be added to one of its free games, Bait!, in the future.
Facebook backtracks on promises…again
Launched in 2012, Oculus was bought by data-hungry tech giant Facebook for $2 billion in 2014. At the time, Oculus co-founder Palmer Luckey said you wouldn’t need a Facebook account to use Oculus. Yet this change was introduced last year to come into place for all users by 2023. He also promised Oculus would never “flash ads at you”—and has said since that he believed this at the time.
The Oculus itself is more affordable than some rivals, which has helped fuel its growth—the Oculus Quest 2 has around 30% of the PC market and sold around a million headsets in the fourth quarter of 2020 alone. But this leaves Facebook in a position where it needs to profit from the device, which is where the ad trial comes in.
“Facebook is clearly worrying about its revenue streams,” says Jake Moore, cybersecurity specialist at ESET. “In-headset ads make a mockery of a system that has already been purchased when users believed it was funded via a different model. If they are still attempting to bring more people into virtual reality, this may not be the best way to go about it.”
Ways to control Oculus ads
The trial is still going forward, but there are ways to control it: Oculus says in its blog that it’s including controls to hide specific ads, or hide ads from an advertiser completely.
Users can also access more detailed Ad Preferences from any ad via its “Why am I seeing this ad?” interface.
Oculus has assured users it won’t infringe your privacy. “The addition of ads on the Oculus Platform doesn’t change our privacy or advertising policies,” the blog reads.
But it does say information will be collected about how you interacted with any ads you see: “While testing ads in Oculus apps, Facebook will get new information like whether you interacted with an ad and if so, how—for example, if you clicked on the ad for more information or if you hid the ad.”
Outside of that, Oculus says the test doesn’t change how your Oculus data is processed or how it informs ads. It says it does not use information processed and stored locally on your headset to target ads. “It can’t reach Facebook servers, so it can’t be used for advertising.”
Oculus also says it has “no plans” to use movement data to target ads, adding that it does not use the content of your conversations with people on apps such as Messenger, Parties, and chats or your voice interactions to target ads.
I contacted Facebook and Oculus for comments and will update this article if the firms respond.
Facebook adding Oculus ads—a reason to leave?
All of this does not change the fact that Facebook owns Oculus, and that Facebook breaks promises all the time. Or that Facebook’s entire business model is based around advertising. Then there’s the fact that you will soon have to have a Facebook account to use Oculus at all—and you pay for the product, so why should you be the product too?
“When you pay for a service you don’t expect it to change dramatically, especially when privacy becomes infringed,” Moore says.
So, is this latest news a reason to ditch your Oculus? Maybe, if you care about your privacy and prefer to avoid Facebook in general. Otherwise it’s a good idea to watch and wait.
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