Commerce is being conducted in the metaverse through cryptocurrencies that have so far eluded a global consensus on regulation. India, too, is waiting. The immersiveness and ubiquity of the metaverse experience permits data collection on a scale vastly greater than now, and existing protection rules may need to be amplified. There is also an emerging need to protect intellectual property rights (IPR) in the metaverse.
Calls for reforming merger control are becoming stronger with the increase of data collected by virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR) devices, and the coercive choice architecture of the platforms on which the metaverse is being built. If the metaverse is to belong to communities and not the companies that build it, open standards will need to come into play.
Access to data that includes emotional reactions can cause intrusive profiling, leading to consumers’ and citizens’ loss of control over choices. The current crop of data protection rules is not designed to tackle this degree of complexity. Currently, ownership of digital assets is mainly governed by contract law instead of property law.
This could render metaverse creators an inordinate degree of control over virtual real estate. As they shape up, platforms need to link non-fungible tokens to proprietary digital assets, restricting customers’ ability to operate among alternative virtual worlds.
The risks for customers are magnified by the scale of data collection and the ways it can be used. The scope for an explosion in cyber-crime calls for greater integrity of metaverse avatars, and the ability to penetrate layers of encryption permitted by cryptocurrencies. Smart contracts using blockchain technology will also need a legal framework.