Brussels wants common rules for a “safe use” of web 4.0 and the “virtual worlds” of the metaverse

BRUSSELS, 11 Jul. () –

The European Commission has presented this Tuesday its vision for a new strategy that allows progress towards common standards that favor a “safe use” of web 4.0 and the “virtual worlds” of the metaverse, with the aim of having a space of trust that allow European companies to develop “state-of-the-art” offers at a global level, through “open” technologies and standards that guarantee interoperability between platforms and networks but also the free choice of users.

“We have to focus on people and configure (virtual worlds) in accordance with our rights and digital principles of the European Union, so that we address the risks linked to the right to privacy or misinformation,” said the vice president of the Executive Community Commissioner for Competition, Margrethe Vestager. “We want to make sure that web 4.0 becomes an open, safe, reliable, fair and inclusive digital environment for all,” stressed the Danish liberal.

In the absence of developing in the coming months the details of the measures indicated in its proposal for a new strategy, Brussels advances its interest in promoting international standards for virtual worlds and web 4.0 that ensure “open and interoperable” spaces, which do not are taken over by “a few large operators”

It also wants to “empower” users and allocate more means to raising awareness in this new sector, favoring, for example, access to reliable information or the creation of a talent pool of specialists in the field. The Community Executive hopes to be able to present a set of “tools” during the first quarter of 2024 at the latest so that citizens can safely enter these digital universes.

Another of the keys for community services has to do with supporting the European web4.0 industrial sector to increase excellence and correct the current fragmentation, given that today there is no precise environment for the different agents in the supply chain. value of virtual worlds.

On the horizon of 2025, Brussels wants there to be an association on virtual worlds that encourages “excellence” in research and marks an industrial and technological “roadmap” in the virtual worlds market.