The metaverse opened for business in 2022, with venture capital backing hundreds of companies, and brands, celebrities, professional service firms and savvy entrepreneurs flocking into virtual reality to make a splash. This article analyzes some of the privacy issues that lawyers have encountered during real-life metaverse dealmaking and counseling, moving beyond white-paper projections to deliver five practical focal points for companies entering the metaverse construction zone. A second article will dive deeper into metaverse-specific challenges for biometric and sensitive data, gaining VR users’ consent, relying on digital wallets and selling non-fungible tokens. See “Protecting Against Crypto Theft” (Aug. 10, 2022).