[CharlesW]

> I'm of the opinion that the data they could slurp up from mining your VR usage is of limited use, because it won't meaningfully improve ad targeting.

Facebook is going to get lots more data than they get from you on desktop and mobile.

“…one of the things I’m really excited about for future versions is getting eye tracking and face tracking in.” — Mark Zuckerberg

https://uploadvr.com/zuckerberg-eye-face-tracking-quest-3/

[jdminhbg]

This quote seems to be about using face/eye tracking to improve the VR itself, not something about ads or data mining.

[scrose]

Having worked very briefly at a company that survived on ad-sales, I can assure you that face/eye tracking will definitely be used as a way to sell more or charge more for ads on the platform. At the very least it will be a way for a marketing team to go back to their bosses about how sticky their ad was. Ie ‘People looked at our ad for an average of 10 seconds!’

[CharlesW]

Yes, and there’s value to that. “Better avatars” is a central part of Zuck’s public sales pitch.

But the actual endgame is that Meta has been building a portfolio of patents that leverage eye and face tracking to better target you with ads and other content.

“The next patent really gets into it…It’s called ‘Techniques for emotion detection and content delivery’. This one is a straight up flowchart for capturing the user’s image via the camera to track your emotions when viewing different types of content. [Meta] could tie your emotional states when checking out videos, ads or baby pictures and serve up content in the future just by reading your initial state of emotion.”

https://www.forbes.com/sites/curtissilver/2017/06/08/how-fac...

[LordDragonfang]

Yeah, many VR consumers are interested in face/eye tracking as well, because it's the logical next step for improving social VR (which a social networking giant is obviously interested in). No need to read further sinister motives into it.

[dieselgate]

I can reply to this comment now but will repost the previous reply:

Not sure why I can’t reply to the sibling comment here but I still cannot trust Meta/MZ for anything - even if the stated goal of eye tracking is to “improve the platform” “They trust me - dumb fucks” Mark Zuckerberg

[dieselgate]

Not sure why I can’t reply to the sibling comment here but I still cannot trust Meta/MZ for anything - even if the stated goal of eye tracking is to “improve the platform”

“They trust me - dumb fucks” Mark Zuckerberg

Edit: can reply as previously desired and edited to reflect that