IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 57

shopping (e.g., virtual underwear, companionship services, etc.).
The metaverse will support an API from which the
aforementioned user may create her space. A user interface supported by the metaverse will allow a user to
request that the store or the department within the
store be produced as a Private Copy. The Private Copy
may either be created using resources on one of the
metaverse provider's servers or in the user's client
device. A "Private Copy" indicator should be visible to
remind the user that the current experience is taking
place in a private copy rather than in the full or otherwise more widely accessible virtual world. Once these
steps are taken, the user may shop in the Private Copy
of the store without worrying that other avatars or bots
are observing. Back in the metaverse, from which the
user originally triggered the Private Copy, the user's avatar might temporarily vanish, or a stand-in "clone" (see
previous section) could mark the avatar's continued
presence. The user interacts with the Private Copy for
some amount of time, and then exits the Private Copy
in order to return to the main fabric of the Virtual World.
Figure 2 illustrates the main aspects.
Modifications to the virtual world itself may or may
not be carried over from the user's interaction with the
Private Copy. For example, the policy for a virtual world
store may not allow avatars to make lasting changes to
the environment in the store, and in this case the store
environment always has the same appearance, according to the store provider's design. In this case, any environmental modification or interaction by the user within
the Private Copy of the store would be necessarily discarded when the user exits the Private Copy. However,
in some scenarios it may be useful to preserve modifications resulting from user interaction within the private
copy. For example, suppose the user requests a Private
Copy of a park within the virtual world, and then the

Privacy mechanisms that do not
preserve the continuity of the
metaverse will not be acceptable
to the users they intend to protect.
user builds a gazebo in the center of the Private Copy of
the park. The user enjoys the gazebo privately for some
time, but then chooses to exit the Private Copy and
return to the main fabric of the virtual world. At this
point the system would assess the modifications the
user made to the Private Copy, and would prompt the
user to decide whether these changes should be discarded or preserved. If the user chooses to discard the
changes then the Private Copy resources are freed and
the user is returned to the (still gazebo-less) park in the
main fabric of the virtual world. If the user chooses to
preserve the changes then the system "merges" the
changes into the main fabric, and thus the gazebo from
the Private Copy may be added to the main fabric version of the park in the virtual world before the Private
Copy resources are freed. In this case, the user and
indeed any other avatar or bot will be able to see and to
interact with the gazebo when present in the park. The
gazebo would also be present in any future Private Copies spawned from the park by any user.
The nuances of merging changes from a user's Private
Copy into the main fabric may depend on whether other
avatars were present in the corresponding main fabric
portion of the virtual world during the Private Copy session, and whether those avatars interacted with, modified, or observed that portion. In particular, it is possible
for a modification made in a user's Private Copy to

Exit
Interact
Create
Request
* User Requests Private
Copy (PC) of a Particular
Part of the Metaverse

* If the Resources Are Not
Available the Request Is
Denied.
* Otherwise, the
Metaverse Creates the
Necessary Resources

* User Avatar Is Placed
Within the PC
* User Interacts with the
Environment and
Objects in the PC

* User Leaves the PC
* Metaverse Manages
(e.g., Merges, Ignores,
etc.) Changes

Figure 2. The flow of steps for a Private Copy.

JUNE 2018

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IEEE Technology and Society Magazine

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