InfoTech and Public Policy

If improving internet security requires that individual users have anti-virus software installed on their consumers, then as I will argue, the best means to pursue this goal is the use of individual mandates and anti-virus vouchers. Before I outline the reasons for this, it is perhaps most important to first establish the feasibility of such a measure from a cost perspective.

The figure of $20 for a voucher was tossed around in class, and examining current offerings on the market, it seems as though $20 would cover the entire cost of a reputable anti-virus program for one year for a single computer (for example, Symantec offers Norton 360 with a 1-year subscription for $80 with licenses for 3 computers). Let us assume that one $20 voucher will be given to any individual who purchases anti-virus protection for the year. Additionally, operating under the liberal assumption that there are about 100 million household computers connected to the internet in the US, the total cost of this program would amount to $2 billion.

Now, while $2 billion would seem like a staggering figure, to put it in perspective, the Love Bug virus cost over $8 billion to exterminate (cite). It is difficult to determine the total cost of virus and worm attacks in the US but it is a figure that is sure to be in the billions. The $2 billion cost of the program seems justifiable if some small percentage of attacks are stopped as a result.

While the goal of getting anti-virus onto every individual’s computer is important, the question remains as to why vouchers to individuals are needed. Vouchers to computer manufacturers or ISPs would surely lead to greater anti-virus usage. However, it alters the dynamics of the market. Manufacturers and ISPs would presumably choose the anti-virus to be distributed based on which company is offering the sweetest deal as opposed to which anti-virus company is offering the best product. If consumers are offered a voucher and are forced to pick between several different products, then for a given price, their decision will be motivated on quality. Competitive forces in the anti-virus market will still drive manufacturers towards creating the best possible product. However, if anti-virus purchasing decisions are now placed in the hands of ISPs and manufacturers, the dynamics of the market would be shifted.

The need for a mandate stems from the similarities between anti-virus and vaccinations, for anti-virus software to have the greatest effect, to realize the greatest benefits to anti-virus everyone must be using some type of the software. As for enforcement of a mandate, ISPs could be forbidden from allowing individuals without anti-virus from accessing the internet. To further improve security, ISPs may also be required to remove computers that are believed to be infected with a virus or worm, much as Princeton’s Dormnet does. Given the negative externalities that unprotected individuals place upon other users, justification for the use of an individual mandate seems available as well.

Vouchers could be implemented as in the form of a tax-rebate, etc, but the exact manner in which it is to be distributed is not the greatest concern. Another benefit of the voucher is that it would greatly expand the market for anti-virus software and given that the marginal cost of distributing more software is very low as most of the costs involved in the creation of software lies in research and development, increasing the size of the market for anti-virus software would allow companies to spend more on research since their revenues have increased. All things considered, if the best means to improving internet security is to ensure that all individuals are running anti-virus software, individual vouchers and mandates should be considered as a possible solution.

After the hullaballoo surrounding Comcast’s treatment of BitTorrent traffic, the question of net neutrality with regards to the operation of ISPs has gained greater importance. Last year, Comcast was found to be interfering with BitTorrent traffic but rather than simply stopping all BitTorrent traffic, Comcast blocked traffic in a far more surreptitious manner. Comcast utilized spoofed peers that would interfere with inter-user transfer that would make transfers incredibly slow or in many cases, simply end them. (cite) Limitation on the use of bandwidth for BitTorrent users is common to many ISPs but Comcast’s manner of impersonating peers and sending peer reset messages was rather unique. (cite)

Now, the impetus for ISPs is clear. One ISP representative stated that “The fact is, P2P is (from my point of view) a plague - a cancer, that will consume all the bandwidth that I can provide. It’s an insatiable appetite.”, while another said that “P2P applications can cripple a network, they’re like leaches. Just because you pay 49.99 for a 1.5-3.0mbps connection doesn’t mean your entitled to use whatever protocols you wish on your ISP’s network without them provisioning it to make the network experience good for all users involved.” (cite) When ISPs have such a large incentive and desire to interfere with traffic, action needs to be taken so that customers are indeed receiving the internet connection they are expecting to receive.

The problem with Comcast’s tactics is not simply that they were interfering with individual’s traffic but the manner in which they were doing so. Comcast appears to have not disclosed what it was doing until it was discovered through independent investigation. Net neutrality has often been thrown around as a solution to such situations. Nevertheless, looking at ISPs recent failure to even show up at a recent conference on net neutrality, forcing net neutrality on ISPs would seem to be a difficult proposition. (cite) As I will argue, rather than mandating some form of net neutrality, it is far important regulation that ISPs are far more transparent in the services they are providing.

With a more transparent system in place, consumers will be better enabled to decide what ISPs best suit their needs. However, better disclosure of information would not only allow consumers to better decide what type of ISP they need but would presumably improve ISPs’ ability to price their plans. Individuals who only use the internet to check their email presumably do not require the same connection that a dedicated file sharer would need. With better price discrimination, more consumers would then presumably purchase internet access. Furthermore, ISPs would be able to extract more revenue from consumers so they too may support such a measure.

Net neutrality is indeed a noble concept but it seems unlikely that it will ever gain the support of the ISPs. More stringent disclosure requirements for ISPs would presumably have a similar effect, while giving individuals more choice.

The phone rang at 3AM and my bleary eyed friend started answering questions about his formatting. He was in New York but the voice on the other end of the line was thousands of miles away. His company had recently moved its production department to India and the benefits to the company were clear. Sure employees would sometimes be faced with calls at odd hours of the night but the cost benefits to the company were huge. As a side benefit, due to the time difference, documents would be prepared overnight and ready in New York by morning.

Just as manufacturing began to be dominated by lower cost foreign players over the past few decades, the outsourcing of IT work has begun to become quite common. Countries like India, with large workforces filled with educated and English-speaking individuals have siphoned off many American jobs, which in turn has prompted calls for more protectionist policies. Nevertheless, offshoring is hardly the threat that many would contend it is.

Going back to the theory of comparative advantage, only nations that are best equipped to produce a good should produce it. So if India is able to provide IT services of similar quality to that of the US but at lower cost, then both India and the US would benefit from outsourcing such work. Sure, IT jobs in America would be lost in the short term but over the long run, total consumer utility would be maximized.

IT is no different from any other good and with the widespread proliferation of broadband internet access, many of the boundaries to outsourcing have been lowered. While the short term loss of jobs in some sectors motivates many to call for protectionist policies, a more common accusation is that offshored products are of inferior quality. Such an argument has quite a bit of truth to it as the lower cost of outsourced projects is sometimes created not from a comparative advantage but from a lack of quality. Nevertheless, if quality is a concern then companies would simply stop outsourcing their work. Such behavior was seen when Dell opted to pull some customer service functions from India. (cite)

In the end, outsourcing of IT work should be viewed as being more of a boon than a threat to American industry. Increased competitive pressure will weed out only weak companies who are operating inefficiently. In the short term, such would be undesirable but in the long run, outsourcing promotes a more efficient use of capital and improves everyone’s welfare. There is little reason to view IT as being any different from any other industry. Outsourcing should be embraced as its positive effects greatly outweigh the negative.

Virtual worlds like Second Life offer individuals a new means to interact with one another and on a platform as flexible and open as Second Life’s, people have developed most everything, from businesses to relationships. Second Life has found itself home to virtual churches and even embassies from the Maldives, Sweden and Estonia (cite). Of greater interest is Second Life’s quickly growing economy and given that there is a significant population who are able to make a significant amount of money on Second Life, the question of taxation is sure to come up. (cite)

For some background, it is important to remember that the IRS currently taxes barter trades (cite) and that Second Life has recently instituted at VAT for residents in the EU although transactions between residents are not taxed. (cite) Nevertheless, given that the IRS already taxes barter trades, one is forced to question whether or not intra-game transactions are subject to such rules. At a fundamental level, there really is no difference between such in-game transaction and barter transactions in the real world. Goods in Second Life may not be tangible but they are no different from any other type of software.

With respect to barter transactions, the IRS requires that one estimate the dollar value of such a transaction and given that the Linden dollar is easily converted into American dollars, such estimations are easy to make. It seems as though transactions within Second Life are subject to tax but with respect to enforcement, it seems difficult for one to justify placing that burden upon Second Life’s creators. Much like internet purchases that one is technically obliged to report and pay sales tax for (if applicable), the burden of reporting should fall upon the consumer.

Proposals of taxation within Second Life are perhaps well intentioned but there is no legitimate rationale for instituting a new tax system specific to virtual worlds. Current taxation issues within such worlds are already addressed by the IRS through its position on barter trades. As a recent Wired article stated, (cite), when Julian Dibbell (author of Play Money) asked the IRS about their position on making money within games, they stated that it would indeed be considered a barter transaction. When such transactions are already addressed by our current taxation system, it would only complicate an already complicated system if we are to introduce new taxation specific to virtual worlds.

As we saw with Second Life’s treatment of banks, it is in Second Life’s best interest to promote regulations so that it creates an economy that people trust. For most casual users, there is a relatively low cost for one to switch to a different virtual world and as such, Second Life will pursue actions that are beneficial to keeping its economy well-run. There is no need for external regulation and with respect to taxation, this issue is seemingly addressed by our current tax code. It seems that the best possible course of action with respect to games like Second Life is to simply let them be. If the IRS deems they need to better enforce taxation of such transactions then they are free to do so but otherwise, adding new regulations are an unneeded step that would simply complicate transactions.

Virtual worlds like World of Warcraft and Second Life may seem like nothing more than just another video game, but their massive scope and complexity allow them to become much more. The level of sophistication in such games is evident in how they are often used by social scientists, epidemiologists and others studying group phenomenon. One good example of this is when the makers of World of Warcraft introduced a disease into the game called “corrupted blood.” (cite)

The disease quickly spread, becoming a plague that killed thousands of virtual players. The incident offered itself as a great case study for epidemiologists as players “seemed to really feel they were at risk and took the threat of infection seriously, even though it was only a game.”(cite) Epidemiological studies are typically limited to observational ones but in cases like World of Warcraft, investigators could theoretically release a disease into a virtual environment to learn more about its spread. World of Warcraft is proving itself to be a useful tool for epidemiologists and as the BBC reports, some, like Prof. Fefferman of Tufts, use such models to study human behavior in disease outbreaks.

While virtual disease outbreaks are interesting, there do not seem to be any obvious policy implications to such occurrences. Nevertheless, the recent banking problems in the Second Life economy certainly paint a different picture. While the world’s economy suddenly found itself reeling in a budding credit crisis, the virtual banks of Second Life found themselves with a bank run on their hands. Ginko Financial, a bank based in Second Life, was forced to cap withdrawals to remain solvent. (cite) Given that Linden Dollars are exchangeable for real currency, the implications of such a crisis are manifest in the real world as well.

Part of this virtual crisis may have been caused by a number of problems in the world’s financial system but the lax oversight in virtual banking is perhaps the bigger culprit. Ginko Financial collapsed soon after it began to cap withdrawals as it found itself unable to pay out its depositors who had placed almost 200m Linden dollars, or almost $750,000. (cite) Ginko’s questionable financial practices are perhaps the biggest question mark in its operation. It offered annual interest rates approximately equal to 44%. (cite) Ginko was not the only bank to offer such ridiculous rates as a fairly sizable number of banks in Second Life were offering similar rates. A guaranteed return of 44% seems highly unrealistic but given the lack of oversight in Second Life, such banks were allowed to flourish in a pyramid-like scheme.

More recently, Second Life opted to actually close down all of its virtual banks (cite). Rather than attempting to regulate them within the virtual world, Second Life now prohibits any institution from offering “interest or any direct return on an investment (whether in L$ or other currency) from any object, such as an ATM, located in Second Life, without proof of an applicable government registration statement or financial institution charter.”(cite)

Rather than developing a system of enforcement or self-regulation within the virtual world, Second Life’s creators opted to defer such roles to the appropriate agencies in the real world. Real world regulation now applies, at least in some degree, to the workings of Second Life. Given the proliferation of online banks and their treatment, perhaps similar regulation of virtual banks in Second Life is not a very absurd concept. Nevertheless, Second Life’s decision to defer regulation to real authorities is an interesting one and one is left to wonder whether such actions will set a precedent for other virtual worlds. Regardless, it is rather remarkable that such virtual worlds have advanced to such a level of sophistication where regulation is even a question.

Several months ago, I had my first brush with how restrictive some cell phone providers have made their networks.  After having lost my Verizon wireless cell phone somewhere in the depths of New York’s public transportation system, I figured I could just buy a cheap Verizon prepaid cell phone and have it reactivated on my account.  I even paid for the minutes that I was required to purchase.  I soon called Verizon, only to be informed that I could not activate the prepaid phone on my regular account.  It seemed fairly absurd, Verizon not allowing me to activate a Verizon phone on my Verizon account but it seems that the system is finally beginning to change.

In recent news, the FCC 700Mhz auction recently closed (cite) and while Google did not come away with any spectrum licenses, the traditional powers in the cell phone industry sure did.  Verizon Wireless came away with the highly coveted Upper C Block of spectrum, although it comes with an array of requirements regarding open access.  Verizon also won most of the A block along with 77 licenses in the B Block while AT&T came away with 227 pieces of spectrum.   From a financial perspective, the auction seems to have been a success.  The FCC reported that the auction raised a record $19.6 billion, a total that was almost twice congressional estimates, even though the D block of spectrum went unsold (cite).  However, what is of greater interest is the possible ramifications of the open platform requirement placed on Verizon’s C block of spectrum. 

Verizon made a commitment to open its entire network to devices of a customer’s choosing, provided they are CDMA compatible.  One is to thank Google for this new openness in cellular networks as Google campaigned heavily for openness on the auctioned spectrum and even backed up its campaign by placing a bid.

Nevertheless, one is forced to wonder what will come of this strategy.  For one, this openness will allow cellular networks, or at least Verizon, to adopt a business model like that of an internet service provider.  Sure, they might control the network but a user now has a greater choice of devices, content and applications.  Verizon might choose to charge more to customers who do not use their own devices but that decision is up to them.

The new openness in cellular networks is sure to increase the availability of cell phones in the United States, where cell phone availability tends to lag Europe and
Asia.  More importantly, there would presumably be an increased availability of content and applications on the network.  With Verizon working adopting a business model more like that of the internet, we can expect to see a great deal of new content and products.   The currently restricted nature of Verizon’s services, really stifles innovation and while it may fatten Verizon’s profit margins in the short term, it was only a matter of time before the market opened itself up.  It is perhaps to everyone’s advantage that this opening of services has occurred, customers benefit from having more choice and as that is likely to create more demand for Verizon’s service, Verizon too stands to gain.  While it will take time to see how exactly this plays out, it seems as though everyone will benefit from this outcome.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court refused to hear Microsoft’s appeal of the antitrust suit that was placed by Novell in 2004.  Novell contended that Microsoft “deliberately targeted and destroyed” (cite: AP) its own productivity suite including what used to be former industry leaders, WordPerfect and QuattroPro and lower courts agreed with this contention. 

Microsoft, which was previously found to be in violation of anti-trust laws with respect to its use of its Windows monopoly to gain market share in the internet browser arena found itself in a similar position with Novell.  Novell contended that Microsoft targeted Novell’s products because they could run on other OSs.  Equipped with a useful productivity suite, competitors to Windows may have gained market share and as such Novell argued that Microsoft violated anti-trust law. 

Meanwhile, microsoft argued that Novell was not at all involved in the OS market and therefore it could not have been harmed.   Now, how exactly did Microsoft harm Novell?  Well here is what Novell’s complaint stated:

“90. Third, Microsoft unilaterally made the proprietary Rich Text Format (”RTF”) of Microsoft Word the standard file format for text-based documents in applications developed for Windows. Upon capturing the standard, Microsoft strategically withheld the specification to injure competitors, including Novell.” (cite)

Novell argued that the creation of such a standard while withholding technical specifications allowed Microsoft to control the “convertibility of documents through its control of the RTF standard.” (cite)  Further arguments suggested that Microsoft imposed additional standards, such as the need for a toolbar that forced Novell to redevelop its products.  Such standards were not only unfair in Novell’s eyes but also forced developers into using inferior practices (in Novell’s eyes, the “button bar” found in WordPerfect was superior to Office’s toolbar).

While the debate between Microsoft and Novell appears to have been settled by the Supreme Court’s ruling, it brings to mind the question of standards in technology.   The need for standards in hardware is obvious and hardware manufacturers have a large incentive to cooperate together lest they find themselves in an expensive war of attrition as Toshiba and Sony found themselves in during the Blu-Ray/HD DVD war.   Sure. a hardware manufacturer may go his own way (like Sony and its MemorySticks) but as long as he does not control the market, such actions do not really impose any negative externalities on other market players.

However, with the case of Microsoft and its monopoly power, there is really little incentive for the company to work with other corporations to develop a set of standards.  If it is allowed to develop standards on its own then, as was the case with rich text format, it may choose to create standards that would allow it to leverage its OS monopoly to gain market share elsewhere.  So what is a possible solution to this problem?  Should there be an independent consortium of developers that would develop or at the very least approve any new standards changes that Microsoft would like to impose? 

I would argue that such a consortium would only add inefficiency to the already inefficient product development cycle that Microsoft is on.  Anti-trust legislation is in place to address any abuses of power and if Microsoft had successfully thwarted Novell’s suit then perhaps the need for such a consortium would exist.   If market pressures force Microsoft to adhere to some externally developed standard then it should do so but in the meantime, allowing corporations to develop and adhere to their own standards whenever possible would be most conducive to creativity and innovation.  Sure incompatibility problems are sure to arise but as we see with hardware, if there is adequate market pressure then standards will be developed.   And even if there is little market pressure, the legal system appears to be adequately equipped to combat abuses of monopoly power.

As Europe switches to digital television and radio signals from its current analog system, it is faced with the prospect of newly freed spectrum.  Since digital signals require less spectrum than analog signals, the switchover creates a so called digital dividend of spectrum.   Naturally, questions arise with respect to what should be done with this newly available spectrum and while the seemingly natural solution would be to sell the spectrum, a report recently issued by the European Broadcasting Union suggests otherwise.

The EBU argues that auctioning the spare spectrum would do little to further the availability of rural broadband and would decrease the amount of original television programming.  The EBU further claims that this decrease in original programming harms society and while this in and of itself is questionable, for the sake of argument, I will suppose that such harm is real.  As a recent article in the Register stated, rather dramatically, “if broadcasters are required to spend their money on spectrum then there’ll be less original programming, leading to a less well-educated population and the general collapse of society as we know it.”

The EBU believes that the broadcasters are less able to make money from the spectrum than cellular phone companies and if they are forced to buy spectrum, then not only would they be unable to pay as much but they would also be forced to cut spending on original programming.  The logic of this is impeccable but one is forced to question whether this really is bad.  Meanwhile, the EBU contends that other uses of the UHF spectrum, such as a wireless broadband infrastructure, would be ineffectual for a variety of technical reasons.  However, just because one potential use for the spectrum may not be successful does not mean that broadcasters should be granted spectrum.

In fact, if such spectrum were to be auctioned off, it seems unlikely that the winning entity would use the spectrum for broadband if the spectrum is ill-suited to it.  The high costs to acquiring the spectrum would lead one to believe that any inefficient use of it would not occur.  And therein is the point that the EBU seems to gloss over.  They contend that broadcasters would be unable to pay the price that a cellular phone company would be able to.   However, if they are not able to pay as much as say Vodafone is, then why are we to assume that broadcasters are somehow more entitled to this spectrum.  The greater willingness of mobile phone operators to pay for spectrum suggests that they will be able to use it in the most profitable fashion. 

While profits do not necessarily translate into societal good, the only real public value that broadcast television creates is perhaps in educational and other independent programming.  In the era before the internet and other similar means of communication, it perhaps made sense to grant spectrum to certain groups (such as was granted to London’s theater scene).  However, given the ease of obtaining such independent content from other sources in today’s society, it makes less sense to offer favorable treatment to broadcasters.  If cellular phone operators are best equipped to profit from the spectrum and are willing to pay the most for it, then they should be allowed to purchase and use the spectrum.  The EBU treats broadcasters as though they are merely acting for the public good but in reality they too are multi-billion dollar, for-profit corporations and it makes little sense that they should be granted any special treatment.

In the latest twist in the Wikileaks case, a Stanford graduate student has received a summons apparently because he was a moderator of a discussion group regarding Wikileaks on Facebook.  The Swiss bank responsible for having Wikileaks shut down, Bank Julius Baer & Company, targeted Daniel Mathews with a summons stating that “Wikileaks lists [Matthews] as an officer of the company on its Facebook page. As an officer of a defendant in this action, my client is entitled to serve you a copy of the summons and complaint pursuant to Rule 4(h)(1)(B) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.” 

The Facebook group in question was started in response to Wikileaks’ closure and Matthews was listed as the “Stanford Representative.”  The lack of any real connection between the Facebook group and Wikileak management suggests the absurdity of the summons but draws attention to the difficulties faced by traditional legal systems when attempting to regulate entities protected by the shield of anonymity afforded by the internet. 

In response, Matthews and his lawyer have claimed that the court’s injunction against Wikileaks has hurt him since his readers are no longer able to access materials on Wikileaks that are unrelated to the bank.  While the case against Matthews seems to be ridiculous, it does attest to the desperation of Julius Baer’s lawyers have as they search for a defendant in the Wikileaks case.  Given that people as seemingly innocent as Matthews can get dragged into situations because of anonymity on the internet, perhaps such amounts of privacy are not very desirable.

Nevertheless, the preservation of anonymity while posting on discussion boards seems to be quite merited, falling under the realm of freedom of speech.  The Supreme Court has ruled in favor of anonymous freedom of speech in the past, most recently in a case involving door-to-door solicitors.  The court’s opinion overturned a small town’s decision to force solicitors to register their name and other information to receive a permit allowing them to canvass door-to-door.  Commenting on the case, Justice John Paul Stevens stated that “it is offensive — not only to the values protected by the First Amendment, but to the very notion of a free society -– that in the context of everyday public discourse a citizen must first inform the government of her desire to speak to her neighbors and then obtain a permit to do so.”  

However, allowing businesses to operate completely anonymously seems to be of lesser importance, especially when doing so makes legal action difficult.  Perhaps the process for registering a web address should be similar to that of registering a corporation, allowing each site to be traced back to a group of individuals liable for the content they post on their site.  Nevertheless, previous precedent seems to suggest that formal registration with the government for freedom of speech is unlikely to occur.

While it may be legally permissible for sites to be forced to keep logs of their users, it seems difficult to justify the forced registration of website owners with the government.  Even though it would have prevented some hardship for Mr. Matthews, in the long-term, the preservation of free speech may be worth such costs. 

I recently spent the summer working in England and in my repertoire of procrastination-friendly websites was Gmail, Google’s email service.  Other interns joined the service to take advantage of the integrated chat feature but it was somewhat odd that rather than receiving a @gmail.com username like I had, they had @googlemail.com names.  At first I thought Google had rebranded their email service, perhaps to make its affiliation to Google clearer but on closer inspection, I found that the real reason was due to a trademark dispute. (http://mail.google.com/mail/help/intl/en-GB/googlemail.html)

In the UK, Gmail was already being used by Independent International Investment Research (IIIR), a London company using the trademark for its own email application.  After Google announced it was launching its Gmail service in the UK in 2004, IIIR quickly trademarked the Gmail name with the EU and has since requested an amount in the neighborhood of $50 million to relinquish its claim on the Gmail name.  Nevertheless, given that IIIR has a market capitalization of only about $5 million, such an amount seems to be a bit exorbitant.

While the situation may seem reminiscent of Nissan Motor’s squabble over www.nissan.com, this one is a bit different.  Claiming trademark dilution and cyber-squatting, Nissan brought the matter to American courts in an attempt to gain control of the domain name. Nevertheless, given that Nissan Computers still controls the domain name, it appears that Nissan Motors has not succeeded. 

However, the case with Gmail is a bit different since all users of Gmail who registered before October 2005 are still able to retain their @gmail.com usernames.  Furthermore, anyone can still obtain a @gmail.com username provided they are registering from within the UK (or Germany, where a separate trademark battle is occurring).  Being unable to use the Gmail domain in two of the world’s largest economies is sure to hurt Google’s nascent email service. 

While the current success of IIIR and Nissan Computers lends hope that large corporate entities are unable to simply toss their weight around and get their way on the internet, one is forced to wonder how Google is able to restrict registrations under the Gmail name.  Use of a VPN or even a quick trip up to Scotland would allow one to register with the coveted Gmail.com name if they so desired.  Besides, the BBC reports that IILR’s clients include major international corporations like Bank of America and Citibank.  It seems odd that the use of the Gmail name is to be suddenly restricted only in the UK when users of IIIR’s service and of Google’s email service exist internationally.

Google’s attempt to satisfy IIIR’s claims to the Gmail name brings up a number of questions dealing with the use of names on the internet.  While situations like Nissan’s force Nissan to use the Nissancars.com address in the United States, there is still a sizable portion of users in the UK who still have their @gmail.com identities.  The use of “gmail” by Google in the UK therefore continues and it would be interesting to see how such a situation resolves itself.   However, based on the fact that Google no longer owns the www.gmail.co.uk address, it seems likely that Google is perfectly content in being unable to use the gmail name in the
UK.