Meta just announced her new Quest Pro headsetand then modify the privacy policy to use gaze tracking to show advertising in the metaverse. Or at least that’s what the new policies and some statements by the company’s executives seem to suggest.
Meta Quest Pro, eye tracking for advertising
According to what Gizmodo first discovered, Meta recently changed its privacy policy by adding a section called “Eye Tracking Privacy Notice.” A couple of new paragraphs explain that if you agree to share this new gaze tracking data, Meta will use it to “Personalize your experience and improve Meta Quest”.
Not a direct statement about advertising, then. But often “personalizing the experience” means using targeted advertising, in the legal language of Silicon Valley. Also because the executive of Meta’s global affairs, Nick Cleggtold the Financial Times that eye tracking could be used “to understand if people follow the advertisements or not ”.
Considering that Meta is also working on full-body tracking to better simulate the movement of avatars, some experts fear that personalized advertising can become even more pervasive. It is impossible to get around in the metaverse.
At the moment there are no advertising spaces in Meta’s virtual hubs, but given the financial model of all the company’s social networks, this could change. Several experts believe that in the near future, if enough users enter the metaverse, Meta will be ready to provide advertising space to advertisers. From which we will not be able to look away.