Oculus: U.S. Commerce Department opens investigation into Meta’s VR division

Oculus, the VR division belonging to Meta, has to justify itself before the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The latter initiated an investigation into possible competition violations against Oculus, which could have serious consequences for the group’s Metaverse plans.

Investigation filed against Oculus

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has opened an investigation into Oculus, the VR division belonging to the Meta Group (Facebook), for possible antitrust violations. This is according to a report by the news agency Bloomberg.

The focus is primarily on programs that are direct competitors to Meta’s own offerings. Several third-party app programmers have already been interviewed as part of the investigation, the report says. Possible violations of antitrust law are to be illuminated in the course of the investigation.

The investigation is also focusing on the pricing of Oculus VR headsets, which are sold by Meta Group. First and foremost, the Oculus Quest 2, which is offered for $299 and is thus significantly cheaper than competing products like the HTC Vice Flow.

Due to the merging of user data between the Oculus Quest 2 and Facebook, whose account is mandatory for use, the Meta Group’s VR goggles have been banned in Germany by the Federal Cartel Office – the corresponding review has been running already since December 2020.

App developers raise allegations against Meta

As part of the investigation by FTC and several U.S. states such as New York, Tennessee and North Carolina, app developers were already approached last year to further shed light on Meta’s approach to strengthening its own brand power.

Already in the run-up to the event, accusations were made against Meta that the company was exploiting its own power to significantly slow down the development of competing services and games.

According to a provider of a fitness tracking app for Oculus systems, for example, a software update blocked important functions before Meta launched the Oculus Move app, a comparable software with a similar range of functions.

Another app developer said it released a program that enabled game streaming from PC titles to the VR headset. Meta reportedly threatened to remove his app if he did not remove this feature. Shortly after, Meta released Oculus Link with similar features.

The two examples are not said to have been an isolated case. Many promising features were simply copied by the Meta company and used in their own apps. At the same time, the developers of the original app were made significantly more difficult to use, the Bloomberg report continues.

Does the Metaverse threaten to topple?

The investigations by the U.S. Commerce Department could become a major problem for the Metaverse, for which the Zuckerberg Group has already invested around $50 million in the in research and program partners and in the areas of VR and AR. Again, the group had simply blocked an Instagram account called Metaverse last year.

At the same time, Zuckerberg and the Metaverse group are also facing an antitrust lawsuit that also focuses on Facebook’s exploitation of market power. The corresponding proceedings could drag on for a long time.