Facebook temporarily halts Oculus VR headset sales in Germany

It seems Facebook may have ruffled the feathers of the German authorities due to its shift to requiring Facebook accounts for Oculus products. While the company works out an agreement, it has temporarily halted sales in Germany. A German tech news website called Heise.de was the first to break the news.

We reached out to Facebook for comment. A company spokesperson confirmed that it was a proactive measure and provided the following statement:

"We are temporarily pausing the sale of Oculus devices to consumers in Germany. We will continue supporting users who already own an Oculus device and we're looking forward to resuming sales in Germany soon."

Heise also reached out to the Federal Cartel Office in Germany for a comment, and they were told that there are no ongoing discussions with Facebook regarding Oculus.

This move may be in response to past legal proceedings. The German Federal Court of Justice recently ruled that Facebook would not be able to merge data from multiple services, such as Whatsapp and Instagram. Given the recent change of policy, Facebook may be making this move pre-emptively to avoid problems when it starts requiring mandatory Facebook accounts for new Oculus users.

According to Heise, Facebook said that the change would not affect existing Oculus owners, and the Oculus store is still active. Retailers are also still free to sell off their remaining inventory, but they will not be restocked until Facebook resumes sales in the country.