Oculus VR headset owners be aware: Your Oculus activity can now be used to serve up customized ads on your connected Facebook account.
So don't be surprised if you start encountering creepy Facebook ads encouraging you to play more VR games. On Wednesday, Facebook's Oculus VR division mentioned the change in a blog post introducing new chat and friend-finding features coming to the virtual reality headsets.
"As part of these changes, Facebook will now use information about your Oculus activity, like which apps you use, to help provide these new social features and more relevant content, including ads," it said.
The data sharing specifically applies to users who've logged into an Oculus VR headset with their Facebook account, which many product owners may have done out of convenience. "To make sure that people understand these changes, we're also updating the Oculus Privacy Policy to clarify that these social features are also provided by Facebook," the blog post noted.
Before, the privacy policy merely said the company would use your Facebook activity to help recommend content "you'll find interesting and engaging" while using your Oculus VR headset. Now the language has been changed to explicitly say the social network can tap "information about your use of Oculus products to provide, personalize and improve Facebook Company Products, including to personalize the ads you see on and off Facebook Company Products."
What Facebook exactly means by "ads you see on and off" wasn't elaborated on, but it may simply refer to email-based marketing. (In addition to Oculus, the company also owns Instagram and WhatsApp, and works with many third-party providers.)
The policy tweak, which was first noticed by UploadVR, may make some users cringe. Following several privacy scandals, consumer trust in Facebook is at an all-time low. But according to Oculus, the change promises to help users get more out of their headsets through recommendations, including new VR apps and events they may be interested in.
The company has created an extensive FAQ on what product owners can expect. Oculus also adds: "If you choose not to log into Facebook on Oculus, we won't share data with Facebook to allow third parties to target advertisements to you based on your use of the Oculus Platform."
However, not logging in via a Facebook account means owners won't be able to enjoy the first-party social features the company is trying to provide over the Oculus VR headsets. It's also important to note, under the existing privacy policy, Facebook's Oculus division can still collect your VR activity to serve promotional messages on and off the platform, which can include email-based notifications.
"People who log into Facebook on the Oculus platform will see more targeted ads across Facebook products, however please note, we do not currently display ads in Oculus VR headsets," a Facebook spokesperson told PCMag.
Oculus owners who do log in via a Facebook account can control what data the social network uses to show ads by going into their Facebook settings.