Concerns Raised Over Oculus Rift Terms Of Service

The Terms of Service (TOS) that accompany the Oculus Rift have raised concerns from users and potential users. UploadVR report; Oculus ‘Always On’ Services and Privacy Policy May Be a Cause for Concern. Gizmodo report; There Are Some Super Shady Things in Oculus Rift’s Terms of Service. techdirt report; Oculus Users Freak Out Over VR Headset’s TOS, Though Most Of It Is Boilerplate.

The concerns raised will sound rather familiar in parts for Second Life content creators. This is especially the case for parts of the TOS such as this :

Unless otherwise agreed to, we do not claim any ownership rights in or to your User Content. By 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.

Sections of a TOS such as this can sound worse than they actually are. A lot of those rights are required for companies to carry your content and transmit it to other users. The article over at Gizmodo suggest that the result of the above is :

If you create something using Oculus’ services, the Terms of Service say that you surrender all rights to that work and that Oculus can use it whenever it wants, for whatever purposes

I’m not convinced that’s quite true but it’s not hard to see why people come to that conclusion. techdirt point out :

The problem with getting hysterical over the TOS is that this language is essentially boilerplate, and attached to the terms of service for pretty much every service in existence so they can make a sharing technology work without being sued over copyright. While certainly worded poorly there’s no real nefarious intent; it’s CYA lawyer language.

The UploadVR article takes a closer look at the privacy angle and the privacy policy that is incorporated into the TOS.

The privacy policy sets out the information that Oculus will collect about you and how they will use it, for example part of the privacy policy states :

• Location information, which can be derived from information such as your device’s IP address. If you’re using a mobile device, we may collect information about the device’s precise location, which is derived from sources such as the device’s GPS signal and information about nearby WiFi networks and cell towers; and
• Information about your physical movements and dimensions when you use a virtual reality headset.

This sounds a tad more invasive and has raised more than a few eyebrows but lots of companies collect similar information, maybe not with relation to physical movements but the device in question here will be reliant on movements, so it’s probably an important piece of information to capture.

How the information will be used though, that’s a bit more predictable, even if some will find it annoying. Here are a couple of ways the information may be used :

• To 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.
• To promote safety and security. We use the information we collect to help promote safety and security, such as by investigating suspicious activity or violations of our terms or policies and protecting our or others’ rights or property.

Marketing was always going to happen. There should not be too many complaints about the safety aspect. Other ways they will use the gathered information is in order to provide services, allow user to user communications and such like.

One piece of the TOS that isn’t really being discussed, but may be of some interest to virtual world users is this :

Virtual Items. Your purchase of a virtual item or in-game currency within the Services is a payment for a limited, non-assignable license to access and use such content or functionality in the Services. Virtual items (including characters and character names) or in-game currency purchased or available to you in the Services can only be used in connection with the Services where you obtained them or where they were developed by you as a result of game play. These items are not redeemable or subject to refund and cannot be traded outside of the Services for money or other items for value. We may modify or discontinue virtual items or in-game currency at any time.

Inworld payments aren’t new for apps or games but I wonder if Oculus or Facebook will have a currency similar to the Linden Dollar at some point.

The comments in the articles follow a familiar pattern to those we’ve seen regarding the Second Life TOS. Some people are very concerned, some people feel there’s nothing to worry about and some feel some parts are misunderstood but others are a cause of concern. In reality, all users and content creators want from a TOS is a sensible dialogue where they feel their concerns are being taken seriously, that doesn’t seem to happen very often and leaves people a tad uneasy.

Virtual Worlds and Virtual Reality is going to rise, companies owe it to themselves and their customers to have a sensible dialogue rather than hiding behind a largely boilerplate TOS. Discussion can be constructive and it would most certainly help build better relations between companies and their customers.