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Oculus Rift has some shady stuff in their terms & privacy policy

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Shocker, the Facebook owned Oculus Rift VR device has some pretty concerning stuff in its terms and conditions.

Starting note: I'm really not surprised by any of this since Facebook own it, but it's still not good.

First up is this absolute gem:
QuoteBy submitting User Content through the Services, you grant Oculus a worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual (i.e. lasting forever), non-exclusive, transferable, royalty-free and fully sublicensable (i.e. we can grant this right to others) right to use, copy, display, store, adapt, publicly perform and distribute such User Content in connection with the Services. You irrevocably consent to any and all acts or omissions by us or persons authorized by us that may infringe any moral right (or analogous right) in your User Content.

You of course still own it, but they get to do literally whatever they want with your content. They also pass that right onto others. Don't agree with how they used your content? Tough as far as they are concerned.

I am surprised such terms are legal (I always get surprised by things like this, the world is a crazy place), and I imagine they will get a bit of flak for this. It seems very anti-consumer, and friendly to no one buying it.

Their privacy policy is a bit of a gold mine too, as they collect lots of information. Information like so:
QuoteInformation about your physical movements and dimensions when you use a virtual reality headset.


For what purpose? Here it is:
QuoteTo market to you. 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.

How long will it be before you get adverts across the internet based on stuff you've done on your Rift device? This creeps me out quite a bit, especially considering the information they are collecting.

Considering who they share it with, not long:
QuoteSharing Within Related Companies. 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. For a list of our related companies, please see https://www.oculus.com/en-us/related-companies/.


You can see their full terms here. You can see their privacy policy here.

To top it all off, what people are installing to use Oculus VR is always on and phoning home.

Thanks Gizmodo.

I'm actually a little glad they dropped support for Linux right now, as their terms are a little bit scary to me. I certainly wouldn't buy one with terms like this that's for sure. I really hope the Vive terms are nicer. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
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32 comments
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Mohandevir Apr 4, 2016
Quoting: GuestAnd that's one reason I'm more interested in the Vive.

HTC Vive is my way to go too, but I was told to check for the Razer OSVR. Since it's an open source project, anyone got impressions on it? It seems quite impressive too.

http://www.razerzone.com/osvr
whatever Apr 4, 2016
Imagine accepting terms like these for a standard 2D monitor: "Asus will own every content you upload using its monitor and will show you targeted ads whenever you use it to do your job. Also, in order to use it, you'll need an Asus account and be connected all the time".....
It seems that adding a dimension makes a VR set not a visualisation device anymore.
Mountain Man Apr 4, 2016
QuoteI am surprised such terms are legal...
Technically they're not, because you can't bound somebody to an agreement simply by asking them to do something they have to do anyway to use the product, such as entering a product code, or clicking "I agree" in order to proceed with software installation. Then there's the fact that the EULA is almost always presented after the user has already purchased and opened the product. The fact is, nobody has ever seriously challenged an End User License Agreement, so whether or not they would even hold up in court remains an open question.
Cheeseness Apr 4, 2016
Quoting: Mohandevir
Quoting: GuestAnd that's one reason I'm more interested in the Vive.

HTC Vive is my way to go too, but I was told to check for the Razer OSVR. Since it's an open source project, anyone got impressions on it? It seems quite impressive too.

http://www.razerzone.com/osvr
I don't have any experience with OSVR yet (OSVR is the API rather than the device), but it's on my list to check out. OSVR apparently also has a SteamVR (which is internally called OpenVR) bridge which as I understands it allows OSVR to make OpenVR API calls to interact with the Vive.

I've been using OpenHMD (another open source HMD abstraction layer that aims to be device agnostic). It doesn't have Vive support yet, but works with the Oculus DK1 and DK2. Unfortunately it doesn't do any rendering stuff, and since Oculus don't support "extended mode" anymore (thanks for breaking backwards compatibility with your devkits, guys \o/), I can't get my stuff working on Windows.

Right now, I feel like I can't ship anything because I don't know what will and won't work with consumer versions of the currently-landing devices, but hopefully within the next month or two things will be clear/settled enough that it'll be easy to make a call on what's a lost cause and what's not.
bubexel Apr 4, 2016
I preordered a HTC vive, Soon i will know how it works on my fedora :D
Keyrock Apr 4, 2016
I wasn't going to buy any VR headset right now anyway, I'm waiting a few years for an iteration or 2 and for the price to come down. That said, those terms are pretty crazy. I mean, I've seen some ridiculous stuff in EULAs before, but this crap takes the cake.
Nyap Apr 4, 2016
Oculus Rift
Sponsored by the NSA


Last edited by Nyap on 4 April 2016 at 2:42 pm UTC
Mountain Man Apr 4, 2016
Quoting: Mohandevir
Quoting: GuestAnd that's one reason I'm more interested in the Vive.

HTC Vive is my way to go too, but I was told to check for the Razer OSVR. Since it's an open source project, anyone got impressions on it? It seems quite impressive too.

http://www.razerzone.com/osvr
Razer products are junk.
tuubi Apr 4, 2016
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Quoting: Mountain ManRazer products are junk.
You've tried all of them? Don't know about Razer, but some Logitech products I've used were junk, others were not.
Beamboom Apr 4, 2016
Quoting: bubexelI preordered a HTC vive, Soon i will know how it works on my fedora :D

Ah this is great, then this community will hear something about this as soon as possible. I am dying to hear how it plays!
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