March 7, 2023
By Anjali Kochhar
The metaverse is the next digital market to attract regulatory scrutiny, European Union’s antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager said last week.
The metaverse has come into sharper focus since Facebook changed its name to Meta Platforms two years ago to reflect its bet on the new sector as the successor to the mobile internet.
“It’s already time for us to start asking what healthy competition would look like in the metaverse,” Vestager told Reuters in a conference organised by Keystone Strategy.
Vestager asked whether it would change the equation when there are competing digital realities and language AI models like ChatGPT.
“Do we need to do more on something new? And obviously we have started that work,” she said.
She said regulatory scrutiny of digital markets has been escalating worldwide in the last three years.
“And there’s a much wider political debate that digital markets need careful attention. I think all jurisdictions are moving forward in one form or another,” Vestager said.
She said some antitrust enforcers were more advanced than others.
“We are moving at different speeds. We will not get the same legal framework. And maybe that is not a bad thing. Because that will allow us to hone our toolkits in the process of mutual learning,” Vestager said.
About the author
Anjali Kochhar covers cryptocurrency stories in India as well as globally. Having been in the field of media and journalism for over three years now, she has developed a sharp news sense and works hard to present information that goes beyond the obvious. She is an avid reader and loves writing on a wide range of subjects.
