Germany Probes Linkage Between Oculus & Facebook

The Bundeskartellamt initiated abuse proceedings against Facebook to examine the linkage between Oculus virtual reality products and Facebook.

Andreas Mundt, President of the Bundeskartellamt said in a statement, “In the future, the use of the newOculus glasses requires the user to also have a Facebook account. Linking virtual reality products and the group’s social network in this way could constitute a prohibited abuse of dominance by Facebook. With its social network Facebook holds a dominant position in Germany and is also already an important player in the emerging but growing VR (virtual reality) market. We intend to examine whether and to what extent this tying arrangement will affect competition in both areas of activity.”

Facebook has begun to integrate its virtual reality activities into the social network Facebook.com. The Oculus platform, which has previously been operated separately from Facebook.com, will be offered as an additional function on Facebook’s social network, under the name “Facebook Reality Labs”. The use of the latest “Quest 2” VRglasses, will require registration using a Facebook.com account. Existing Oculus accounts can no longer be used for registration and the new hardware. Distribution of the new VR glasses outside Germany has already begun.

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