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Oculus 'Always On' Services and Privacy Policy May Be a Cause for Concern

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Re: Oculus 'Always On' Services and Privacy Policy May Be a Cause for Concern

#21

Post by Sir_Substance »

jimrandomh wrote: post #20

Can we wait until they actually do or talk about doing something bad before making a stink about them doing bad things? This is kind of jumping at phantoms, and doing that too much will mean losing the ability to do it for real. Here's what's going on. OVRServer_x64 is, conceptually, a device-driver component for Oculus. It does things like handle the orientation sensor input and controls which app appears on the Ocu…

>because the software infrastructure for measuring that doesn't exist (though I suppose someone could write it);

What the hell are you talking about? The endermen in minecraft change behavior based on whether you are looking at them or not, and minecraft has hardly a bastion of bleeding edge game engine technology. The difference between making an enderman attack if you look at it for more then 2 seconds and firing a metric if you look at a coke bottle for more than two seconds is pretty minimal.

A metric tool that sends data on how long you keep certain objects within the center of your FOV can be backed with off the shelf free software[1]. The infrastructure is commonplace, well tested and used daily for a myriad of metric related tasks all over the world.

[1] http://grafana.org/

Re: Oculus 'Always On' Services and Privacy Policy May Be a Cause for Concern

#22

Post by TrevorJ »

jimrandomh wrote: post #20

Can we wait until they actually do or talk about doing something bad before making a stink about them doing bad things? This is kind of jumping at phantoms, and doing that too much will mean losing the ability to do it for real. Here's what's going on. OVRServer_x64 is, conceptually, a device-driver component for Oculus. It does things like handle the orientation sensor input and controls which app appears on the Ocu…

> it's not like they could have gone without.

Then explain to me why this driver needs to phone home.

Your comment completely ignores the context as well: the predilection of companies, Facebook included, has trended towards surveilling their customers at an alarming rate.

The Coke example is possible on the current hardware because head orientation leaks largely the same data.

Re: Oculus 'Always On' Services and Privacy Policy May Be a Cause for Concern

#23

Post by TrevorJ »

vrfcodf wrote: post #4

From the Facebook shareholder conference call after the Oculus acquisition 2 years ago https://soundcloud.com/highway62/internal-facebook-conferenc... (Note that this is an public call, those are their official statements.) At time stamp 29:19: There might be advertising in the world, but we need to figure that down the line. That is probably where the business will come from... And at time stamp 29:50: If we are suc…

No, Facebook is putting billboards up on an uninhabited island and betting on the idea that people will want to live there. Good way to ensure they don't.

Re: Oculus 'Always On' Services and Privacy Policy May Be a Cause for Concern

#24

Post by spdustin »

hacker_9 wrote: post #2

"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." "Virtual reality offers an unparalleled level of access to data for advertisers. Before metrics were measured in how long someone watched a video or how many times a link was clicked, but with VR you ca…

This is why Facebook bought it to begin with, IMHO. They've got some smart people there who are prescient enough to take their web-based intent-oriented analytics and figure out that head tracking (similar to eye tracking used in UX studies sometimes) would be immensely valuable to track a lingering gaze.

Re: Oculus 'Always On' Services and Privacy Policy May Be a Cause for Concern

#25

Post by karpathy »

Sir_Substance wrote: post #8

I just wanted to buy a computer monitor for my face. I'm paying you $600, can't I just have that? :(

Might be easiest to think of your privacy as a currency similar to $. The real cost is 800. They can offer you $600 and 200 in privacy, or they could offer you $800, which people would throw a fit over and not buy. This is also not entirely accurate because the raw price is a one-time purchase, while privacy is hard to upper bound and can even become more valuable later on.

Facebook operates on this extreme: it's completely "free" to use, except you have to count your privacy, which in fact turns out to be quite valuable currency. And unfortunately I think we've established several times that at least for social media or even web or apps in general that the other extreme of "pay us more of your normal$ and less of your privacy$" doesn't work well at all.

So it looks like you can't have a "monitor for your face and that's it" because human psychology.

Re: Oculus 'Always On' Services and Privacy Policy May Be a Cause for Concern

#26

Post by onewaystreet »

hacker_9 wrote: post #2

"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." "Virtual reality offers an unparalleled level of access to data for advertisers. Before metrics were measured in how long someone watched a video or how many times a link was clicked, but with VR you ca…

That Coke paragraph isn't from Facebook, it's the article's author speculating.

Re: Oculus 'Always On' Services and Privacy Policy May Be a Cause for Concern

#27

Post by Animats »

vrfcodf wrote: post #4

From the Facebook shareholder conference call after the Oculus acquisition 2 years ago https://soundcloud.com/highway62/internal-facebook-conferenc... (Note that this is an public call, those are their official statements.) At time stamp 29:19: There might be advertising in the world, but we need to figure that down the line. That is probably where the business will come from... And at time stamp 29:50: If we are suc…

There are lots of virtual worlds. There, Second Life, etc. None have become really successful, but they continue to work. Second Life supports the Oculus development unit, although not the production product. (The production Oculus is locked down; only apps from Facebook's store or with Facebook-issued "Oculus keys" will run.)

Re: Oculus 'Always On' Services and Privacy Policy May Be a Cause for Concern

#29

Post by nitrogen »

onewaystreet wrote: post #26
hacker_9 wrote: post #2

"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." "Virtual reality offers an unparalleled level of access to data for advertisers. Before metrics were measured in how long someone watched a video or how many times a link was clicked, but with VR you ca…

That Coke paragraph isn't from Facebook, it's the article's author speculating.

It's the first paragraph that is far more concerning anyway. The Coke is just a mild example of something that can get far worse.

If this is VR, VR must die.

Re: Oculus 'Always On' Services and Privacy Policy May Be a Cause for Concern

#30

Post by onewaystreet »

nitrogen wrote: post #29
onewaystreet wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That Coke paragraph isn't from Facebook, it's the article's author speculating.

It's the first paragraph that is far more concerning anyway. The Coke is just a mild example of something that can get far worse. If this is VR, VR must die.

It's not a mild example when the truth is that they are collecting basic usage data for app recommendation and promotion just like everyone else does.
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