Abstract
Marketing in the metaverse is growing rapidly and so are the ethical problems that come with it. Platforms like Roblox, Meta Horizon and Decentraland collect detailed biometric and behavioral data from users as part of their marketing infrastructure, yet existing EU regulations: the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Digital Markets Act, (DMA) and Digital Services Act (DSA) were not designed with these environments in mind. This gap leaves marketers, developers and regulators unsure of how to act. We interviewed 17 experts from three groups including technology developers, marketing professionals and legal and policy specialists to understand how metaverse marketing works in practice and where current rules fall short. Our analysis directed by Gioia methodology produced four aggregate dimensions: data privacy strains in immersive marketing, transparency and ethical gaps in immersive advertising, jurisdiction and accountability gaps and the need for adaptive regulatory frameworks. Together, these dimensions indicate that consumer protection in immersive environments requires both incremental adaptation of existing laws and the co-creation of ethics-by-design practices.
Recommended Citation
Khalid, Muhammad Irfan; Pappas, Ilias O.; Mahmoud, Moatasim; and Rizou, Stamatia, "Ethical and Regulatory Challenges of Metaverse Marketing: Empirical Insights from Experts and Practitioners" (2026). 17th Scandinavian Conference on Information Systems. 10.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/scis2026/10