By Foo Yun Chee
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The metaverse, shared virtual worlds accessible via the internet, has not triggered any concerns so far or the need for legislation to rein it in, EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager said on Thursday.
An initiative that she will present on the metaverse next week aims to help competition regulators understand the industry’s dynamics, Vestager said.
Facebook owner Meta Platforms, Microsoft and Apple are working on metaverse products or services, prompting fears that the companies may dominate the area.
Vestager said she does not have any competition concerns.
“Actually we see that there is a lot of innovation when it comes to virtual worlds. I don’t think that any company can claim that they will own it, so to speak, but that is what we hope to find out,” she told reporters on the sidelines of a conference.
She said a raft of legislation adopted in the last five years to regulate Big Tech, ranging from privacy to market power and upcoming artificial intelligence rules, can also apply to the metaverse.
“In Europe, now we have a body of digital legislation, I think we do have time to explore, to know that we should not jump to regulation as the first sort of safety pad,” Vestager said.
“We should really be careful because now there will be a lot of work to be done to implement, both for the Commission but also for member states.”
(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; Editing by Ros Russell)
