“Starting January 1, 2024, we will start deleting old Oculus accounts to ensure that we are not keeping Oculus account data longer than necessary. If you do not create a Meta account by this date, your Oculus data (including associated apps, content and games you have downloaded or purchased) will be deleted.”
I was happy to switch from my original Oculus/Facebook account to a Meta account back in October when I was prompted to, I never wanted the (originally mandatory) Facebook association in the first place.
But why wouldn't Meta just migrate these accounts automatically? I'm baffled by how the pros could possibly outweigh the cons for Meta here.
For people who don't touch their Quest for a year and a half that was associated with an e-mail account they don't check regularly, and then decide to dust the Quest off to play a game when their niece or nephew visits... and discover all their games are gone?
What the hell? The resulting hatred towards Meta is going to cost more in the long run than any extra money resulting in re-buying a couple of games.
I usually feel like I can understand when companies take user-hostile decisions because it's still easy to see how it makes sense for the company/investors. But here, I'm utterly stumped.
Nevertheless, this is where there need to be laws around this kind of thing. It should be illegal to delete digital purchases or delete accounts like this, end of story. Consumer protection laws are desperately needed here.
When confronted by the upgrade (I was actually trying to do something else, which required upgrading the account to Meta, which required upgrading the software) I tried the path of least resistance, which was just "log in with your email". I didn't remember if this was how I always logged in, and honestly this is a gaming gadget which receives far less atention than my laptop or mobile -- I just figured whatever I chose would be harmless. Turns out this wasn't right, and then the oficial docs warn that choosing the wrong option may result in creating an empty new account without any apps/games, which will require deleting it before proceeding, which may take up to 90 days.
I freaked out, tried logging in, it didn't work, freaked out some more and one of the random things I tried (I forget which) worked and I suddenly had all my stuff again.
Noteworthy here: I'm tech savvy, this shouldn't require freaking out, and in fact it should be smooth sailing, something like "click here to upgrade, done, you're ready to go".
This has changed back and forth twice now in the less than 10 years since Oculus launched.
For Facebook you still need a separate Facebook account.
[1] it's bad enough that many of my facebook hobby groups are public, and therefore every comment I make in one of them is likely to get spammed to my family, friends and coworkers who have zero interest in my hobbies or what I have to say about them. Imagine if HN and facebook were linked, and every comment I made here was spammed to my mum's fb feed.
Here is one of the provisions of interest:
https://gdpr-info.eu/art-5-gdpr/
Ubisoft also cites GDPR provisions for deletion of inactive accounts:
https://www.gamepressure.com/newsroom/ubisoft-removes-player...
They could equally well have said that an account which was inactive for 2 years, or 3 years would be deleted and still be legally compliant.
If you have regulators breathing down your neck being conservative on time isn’t a terrible idea.
Malicious compliance. They deliberately misinterpret and continue to get pulled up on it. For example, just recently: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-63784393
This completely contradicts any argument that their interpretation of privacy regulation is remotely compliant. They cross the line in their favour relentlessly.
If you have paid for digital goods with an account, the data is clearly required! Deleting an inactive account after say a year is a choice made by the company, not directly imposed by GDPR.
It's trying to establish principles of good personal data governance, rather than being prescriptive about all uses of data.
This does make it hard for legal teams to determine compliance I guess. But don't expect the EU to be more definite any time soon!
If a company does not leverage the account, maybe they go bankrupt, get acquired, or just shut down their servers supporting old hardware.
That said, I wonder if people might still qualify for small claims when their devices get turned into bricks.
I'm glad I tried it. The technology is pretty cool. I can see uses for it. The Saber game is a lot of fun. I just found that I'm not compatible with the device.
After some period of time, it literally made me feel nauseous sick. I felt that I could have spent time training myself, but I quickly realized it isn't worth it.
I'm not much of a game player any way. If I'm going to be on a computer, I'd rather be spending that time writing code, reading/commenting on HN, or learning new things.
I can understand your view but find Facebook uniquely evil. Early on I opted for other VR solutions that were promoted by Valve because I knew they would eventually trample user freedom and privacy in the name of profit seeking.
https://twitter.com/d4rckh/status/1477397475837325312?t=ox_j...
Login or Erase Games Sold