European Commission develops metaverse plan

The European Commission has drawn up a metaverse plan to take a leading role in metaverses (shared virtual worlds accessible via the internet) and prevent big tech companies from dominating the nascent field, Reuters reported. The plan includes bringing together creators, media companies and others to create an industry ecosystem and establishing a regulatory sandbox to help companies test the Metaverse, launching skills development programs and virtual public services. Margrethe Vestager, vice-president of the European Commission, said, "We want to ensure that Web 4.0 is an open, secure, trustworthy, fair and inclusive digital environment for all." And create an open and interoperable metaverse, the global market size is expected to exceed 800 billion euros by 2030 from 27 billion euros last year.