Privacy reform has defined the past half-decade in the media, marketing, and ad-tech worlds. When these functions transition to the metaverse, privacy concerns will go into hyperdrive, given its “embodied” aspects that Mark Zuckerberg espouses. How will the tech and media worlds navigate this?

Key Takeaways

Here are a few key messages or insights that we gleaned from this session.

• The metaverse won’t just be one monolithic thing from Meta/Facebook. There will be metaverses (plural), just like we have apps and walled-garden offshoots of today’s web.
• Looking at it in that light starts to frame the privacy dynamics. Like today’s web, those walled-gardens will collect data. And that could go into hyperdrive given the more dimensional and interactive aspects of 3D and “embodied” experiences. 
• This will include new practices and policy for data use and privacy, but it will stem from the data practices and precedent of today’s web. 
• For example, broadly speaking, there will be the allowance of data collection, but it will have to be done responsibly, such as first-party data collection and transparency for how its being used.
• The key will be for companies and metaverse proponents to take lessons from online and mobile media. As they say, “those who don’t study the past are destined to repeat it…”

Privacy: The Gateway to the Metaverse

We will explore the kind of data that will be meaningful, how to identify valuable insights, and how to think carefully about data and privacy in a space that is almost certain to be highly regulated. Most businesses aren’t thinking much about CCPA/CPRA, let alone GDPR.

James Ward, Ward PLLC