3pointD.com

The BBC has an interesting story from Friday how Big Brother’s presence will manifest itself in the metaverse, looking specifically at what companies are doing with the massive amounts of detailed data they’re able to farm from virtual worlds. Though it may seem trivial at the moment to wonder about whether your activities in a video game should be observed by the game-maker, these will be very important issues going forward. What rights to privacy do we have in virtual worlds? Are these public places, in which certain rights are protected? Or are they merely corporate applications? Even in company towns in the real world, though, residents enjoy certain rights. As virtual worlds become more closely knit with our real-world activities, a determination on these issues will weigh heavily on what we can and can’t do in the metaverse, and who will make those decisions. Not to be taken lightly.