TL;DR
- Meta has added something new to its privacy policy titled “Eye Tracking Privacy Notice.”
- The company states that it will use eye-tracking data to personalize experiences and improve the Quest.
- This could give Meta unprecedented levels of data the company could use to serve you ads.
It’s an exciting time for Meta right now. The company just revealed the Quest Pro, showed off fancy new legs for its Horizon Worlds avatars, and told us about its new AR glasses. While it’s easy to get lost in all the new possibilities this technology brings to the table, something that will bring people crashing back down to Earth is a new entry in Meta’s privacy policy.
Discovered by Gizmodo, Meta has updated its privacy policy to include an entry called “Eye Tracking Privacy Notice.” When you open up the page, you’ll find a couple of paragraphs dedicated to what data is collected. In it, the company states if you agree to share additional data, Meta will use eye-tracking and other data points “to help Meta personalize your experiences and improve Meta Quest.”
There’s nothing there that explicitly states that Meta will use this information to deliver ads to its users. However, the “personalizing your experiences” part is often jargon that’s used to refer to targeted ads.
The social juggernaut hasn’t really been shy about its aspirations either. Gizmodo points out that in an interview with Financial Times, Meta’s Head of Global Affairs, Nick Clegg, told the publication that eye-tracking could be used “in order to understand whether people engage with an advertisement or not.”
And the problem isn’t limited to eye-tracking either. Meta is currently working on full-body tracking so avatars can mimic all of your movements more accurately. With this amount of information, it could potentially provide Meta with unprecedented levels of data that could be used to serve you ads.
Over the years, Meta has built up a certain reputation among its users. It has become infamous for its invasive ad-targeting practices. So while there are no ads currently in its VR hub world, it would be far from a surprise if the company began sneaking ads into the experience sometime in the future, after it has built up its user base.
