A lot of Quest users have never read what they click through at checkout, or they have and do not care. But some do. Here is the difference in plain terms between Steam Frame and Quest legal agreements.
Valve’s Steam Frame is a SteamOS headset. Buying one means accepting two existing Valve documents: the privacy policy and the Steam Subscriber Agreement. Together they are about 12,616 words. If you already have a Steam account, you have almost certainly accepted both.
Those documents cover normal Steam collection: account data, playtime and stats, device information, payments, posts, comments, chats, Steam client use, and cookies or pixels used to run the store and recommendations. That is the same stack PC players already live with.
On the Frame’s cameras and eye tracking, Valve says the data is processed on the headset. Valve says it does not collect that data and does not collect byproducts of it. The only extra path is optional. If you send a Steam Support system report, that report can include text logs with some camera and eye-tracking systems data. You choose whether to send it.
Valve says it does not sell user data to third-party advertisers. It also says it does not send room, object, or body data off the headset.
Quest 3 is a different company with a different business. Meta makes money from ads across Facebook, Instagram, and the rest of its products. Quest sits inside that world. Checkout involves seven user agreements totaling more than 36,000 words. That is not a slogan. That is the legal stack before the strap goes on.
Meta’s own Quest help pages say Quest activity — such as which apps you download — can be used to show similar ads on Facebook and Instagram if those accounts are linked in Accounts Center. Meta’s VR legal bases also include a unique device identifier for personalized advertising. The supplemental Quest privacy policy covers more than a game library. It includes account details, gameplay stats, camera and audio when those features are on, movement data, and information about your room: wall sizes, surfaces, objects, and distances from the headset when those features are enabled.
Meta says some raw camera and tracking images are processed on the headset and overwritten. That is their stated technical limit. The account layer is still Meta. The ad products are still Meta. The extra agreements are still Meta.
Steam Frame still runs under Steam’s normal account rules. Camera and eye tracking stay on-device unless you file a support report. Valve says it does not sell the data. Quest 3 asks you to accept a much longer set of papers from an advertising company that can connect headset activity to the rest of its apps. That is the split, written out for anyone who has only ever owned a Quest.
