Published on : 10/12/2020 – 19:28
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Berlin (AFP)
The German competition authority announced Thursday the opening of an investigation for possible infringement against Facebook regarding its new wireless virtual reality headset, the latest dispute to date with the American giant.
“The use of the new Oculus glasses should only be possible in the future if you have a Facebook account,” said the chairman of the anti-cartel authority, Andreas Mundt, in a statement.
“This link between virtual reality products and the social network could constitute an infringement of the ban on the use of a dominant position by Facebook on the market, he added, indicating that he wanted to conduct an investigation at this subject.
The device, called Oculus Quest, is intended to be used in particular to immerse yourself in the graphic worlds of sophisticated games.
Put in all the sauces (video games especially, but also cinema, health, culture, security …), virtual reality interests many sectors, but is still seeking a financially viable market with the general public.
Sony, Microsoft or HTC also have VR headsets on the market.
Facebook has started to integrate its line of virtual reality activity, until now sold via a separate Oculus platform, into its world-famous social network Facebook.com under the name “Facebook Reality Labs”.
This option is offered as an additional function on the social network.
The American giant, however, said it was convinced of being able to respond to the concerns of the German competition gendarme.
“We will fully cooperate with the German authority and are confident that we can demonstrate that the investigation is not justified,” a spokesperson for the group told AFP, also arguing that the virtual glasses are not were not yet on sale on the German market anyway.
Facebook is already in the crosshairs of the German competition police regarding the use of users’ private data. The latter ordered significant restrictions in this area but which have not yet been put in place because the legal dispute is still ongoing.
A delay that the president of the authority judged Wednesday “regrettable for consumers”.
– Growing pressure –
The American giant is generally under increasing pressure from competition authorities around the world.
Several of them in the United States accused Facebook on Wednesday of abusing its dominant position and its well-filled coffers to oust the competition, asking the courts to force the group to separate from Instagram and WhatsApp messaging.
In a separate case, Facebook was successful in a German court.
The Munich District Court issued two judgments earlier this week validating the American giant’s decision to refuse its users to use pseudonyms on its platform, arguing that such a ban helped channel the spread of hate speech on Internet.
The regional court had been seized of two different cases concerning Facebook users who had filed a complaint against the policy of refusal of aliases, with contradictory decisions rendered at first instance by local courts.
“Experience clearly shows that the inhibition is much lower when using pseudonyms” on the internet, said the Munich judges in their expectations.
The use of their real identity is justified “to prevent users from engaging in reprehensible behavior on the internet”, he added.
© 2020 AFP
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