Facebook begins tying social media use to ads served inside its VR ecosystem
A Wednesday blog post has confirmed that Oculus, the VR-specific arm of Facebook, is now displaying advertisements in select VR games and apps to their players. As Facebook has since emphasized in emails sent directly to the press, these ads will leverage "first-party info from Facebook to target these ads"—and FB has yet to announce any limitations for what Facebook account data may be leveraged. (Ars Technica was not briefed about this news ahead of the announcement, and we did not get the opportunity to request the comments that other members of the media received.)
FB's additional clarifying statements about biometric and use data inside of VR are carefully worded to clarify that the company does examine specific use data as it sees fit, and for now, that data won't apply to its new advertising platform. Facebook says it processes and keeps track of the following data, uploaded by users while connected to any Oculus services:
For now, Facebook continues to tell users that "data that are processed on the device" are not uploaded to Facebook servers, which include "raw images" from Oculus headset sensors and "images of your hands" in its hand-tracking interface. Meanwhile, if you'd like to know how much of your use data inside of Facebook (and Instagram and other FB-connected services) might be leveraged by its combined advertising network, clear the rest of your day's schedule and dive in.
