U.S. social media giant Meta’s virtual reality headset was previously forced to stop selling in Germany after government antitrust intervention, according to reports. According to the latest news, Meta’s virtual reality headset is ready to be sold again in German retail stores, for the first time in two years.
Meta published an official blog post stating that the company’s virtual reality headset “Meta Quest 2” will be available in retail stores in Germany before Christmas. Consumers will not be required to provide a Facebook account (Meta’s main social media platform) to purchase the hardware.
Previously, the German government’s antitrust agency, the Federal Cartel Office, and Meta reached an agreement to allow users of virtual reality hardware to log in using a separate account from the Facebook platform. Last month, the Federal Cartel Office announced that it had granted Meta another approval to sell virtual reality headsets in Germany.
In 2020, the German Supreme Court upheld allegations by the government’s antitrust authorities that Facebook (Meta’s old name) was abusing its dominant market position by requiring users to log in to virtual reality devices using accounts on its own platform. Subsequently, Facebook stopped selling these products in Germany.
Shortly thereafter, Andreas Mundt, director of the German Federal Cartel Office, said in a statement that after negotiations between the two parties, Facebook had responded to the German government’s concerns and, as a solution to the antitrust issue, the company agreed to give users of Quest virtual reality devices another option, namely to create a separate account outside of the Facebook platform The company has agreed to give users of Quest virtual reality devices the option of creating a separate account outside of the Facebook platform.
While the issue of user accounts has been resolved, in a November statement, the Federal Cartel Office also said that they were concerned about another antitrust issue involving Meta, namely whether and how user data is exchanged between Meta’s different Internet services.
