3 Creepiest Things Discovered Within Oculus Rift’s Terms of Service & Privacy Policy

The Associated Press
The Associated Press

Some unsettling details have been discovered within the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy for virtual headset the Oculus Rift, including points about questionable data collection and creator copyrights.

The headset in the new wave of virtual reality machines is a spectacle among modern technology. The company’s Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, however, are not so exciting to consumers. Here are three of the creepiest and most questionable discoveries found within the documents.

1. The Oculus Rift is always on, and it’s watching and collecting your data.

When you install the headset, a program entitled “OVRServer_x64.exe” is implanted with it. The software has full system permissions, never turns off, and frequently sends data back to Facebook, everyone’s favorite authoritarian social network that also happens to own the Oculus Rift. To make matters worse, it also states in the Privacy Policy that any data collected can be stored, shared, and used to market specific things to you by working with their Facebook counterparts. Similar to the Microsoft Kinect, which was always on and could watch and listen to you constantly, we don’t know what sort of data the Rift will be collecting, or when.

2. The Oculus Rift wants to share your data with their Facebook ‘family’.

“We may 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,” states a section within the Oculus Rift Privacy Policy. Doesn’t that sound appealing? Because if there was anything we all wanted more of, it was Facebook harvesting our information. Related companies are not just confined to Facebook, however, and with a list of currently eleven related companies (with the possibility of new ones being added at any time), your information is not just to be shared with Facebook for marketing purposes.

3. The Oculus Rift wants to own your creative content.

Anything creative that’s made with the device automatically belongs to Oculus Rift, or at least partially according to the Terms of Service’s User Content section.

Though the Rift does “not claim any ownership rights in or to your User Content” unless otherwise specified, they do have written rights to be able to “use, copy, display, store, adapt, publicly perform and distribute such User Content in connection with the Services.” By signing the Terms of Service when you use the device, you also grant the company full permission to sublicense this ability to anyone of their choosing.

—-

The Oculus Rift’s Terms of Service and Privacy Policy are fairly creepy and ambiguous, despite being in most parts industry standard throughout, and though it’s probably certain that user creations within the device won’t be stolen, used, and auctioned like runaway children at Disney Land, or that the device will watch and monitor you in unthinkable ways, with Facebook’s involvement it should definitely raise a few red flags. To what extent could the company use these permissions that all consumers will undoubtedly flick through and sign off within a couple of seconds of turning the device on? Are we signing our souls to the devil with yet another cold, corporate, and invasive company? We’ll just have to wait and see.

Charlie Nash is a frequent contributor to Breitbart Tech and former editor of the Squid Magazine. You can follow him on Twitter @MrNashington.

COMMENTS

Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.