Europe wants to shape the future of virtual worlds with rules and taxes

EU lawmakers are moving in on the metaverse and making it plain that, whatever newfangled virtual world/s and/or immersive social connectivity that tech industry hype involving the term may refer to, these next-gen virtual spaces won’t escape one hard reality: Regulation.

There may be a second metaverse certainty too, if the Commission gets its way: Network infrastructure taxes.

The EU’s internal market commissioner, Thierry Breton, said today it believes some of the profits made in an increasingly immersive software realm should flow to providers of the network backbone required to host these virtual spaces — a suggestion that’s sure to trigger a fresh round of net neutrality pearl-clutching.

The Commission has been signalling for some months that it wants to find a way to support mobile operators to expand rollouts of next-gen cellular technologies — via imposing some kind of a levy on US tech giants to help fund European network infrastructure — following heavy lobbying by local telcos.

Last week, Breton revealed it plans to consult on network infrastructure cost contribution ideas in Q1 next year — as part of a wider metaverse-focused initiative, with the latter proposal coming later in the year.

More details of the bloc’s thinking on fostering development of virtual spaces and the network pipes needed to connect them has emerged today.

EU initiative on virtual worlds

In a Letter of Intent published today, setting out the bloc’s policy priorities for 2023 — and accompanying her annual State of the European Union speech — the EU’s president, Ursula von der Leyen, confirmed the Commission will put forward an “Initiative on virtual worlds, such as metaverse” next year.

The letter offers scant details on what exactly will be inside the EU’s virtual worlds package. But Breton — via a blog post on LinkedIn of all places — has picked up the baton to flesh out his views on how to deal, in broad-brush policy terms, with (the) metaverse(s) — something he couches as “one of the pressing digital challenges ahead of us”.