Regulating the Metaverse

Metaverse is one of the new, most promising technology platforms. The editors have selected an excellent collection of chapters that attempt to define the critical concepts related to the usage of this technology in personal, social, economic, and political contexts. If digital information technologies and cyber-physical systems converge, the metaverse will be a platform for most interactions in the digital domains. The editors and authors analyze existing technologies because the metaverse is still a rather amorphous idea. They argue that this process is currently underway and that we are witnessing an evolutionary rather than a revolutionary change. The metaverse appears to be a general macro-goal for many large organizations that focus on diminishing the physical environment's role and transitioning their products and services to the virtual space. This macro-goal might result from economic forces or a more profound force caused by human desires to experience fantasy worlds and escape mundane reality. In fact, we are currently experiencing economic and social pressures that diminish urban life in high-value environments defined by traditional financial and industrial hubs. Infrastructure investments appear to be increasingly costly and feasible only in positive economic cycles that have finite durations and invariably end in periods of crisis. The authors discuss the dangers of the combined pressures in the real world with potentially unaccountable corporate entities in the virtual space. This situation appears to be quite reminiscent of the early Internet era, where standards and interoperability were an arena of competition among big organizations. The problem is even more complex in light of the emergence of a confessional culture where users freely hand over personal data to large corporations. Besides privacy problems, a disclosure process in an increasingly immersive environment might lead to new situations. The goal of eliminating human behavior's opacity and thus limiting the involuntary disclosure process is worthy of our attention and is discussed in several chapters. 

Our self-expressive capabilities in the metaverse are still limited, but the foreseeable impact can not be overstated. The struggles for establishing governance frameworks are described at length. Platformization scenarios where the interplay between different systems is possible will likely be progressing along the overarching issues like data protection and other civil rights areas. It is also worth mentioning that property ownership and technological platforms based on blockchain are addressed in several sections of this book.

This book is an excellent overview of many challenges. The practical implementation of many features is underway, and it will likely bring many unforeseen issues to the fore. However, at this time, this book is an excellent review of the main directions in which law, technology, and society will continue to influence this emerging new environment.