After a five year trademark dispute, Google’s Gmail customers in the UK are now able to register Gmail.com accounts and change, if they wish and subject to availability, their existing Googlemail.com addresses to Gmail.com.
The dispute dates back to 2005 when Independent International Investment Research claimed it had used Gmail first. Google had claimed the settlement the company had asked for, for use of the name was “exorbitant” and chose Googlemail instead for all UK users. This came into effect about a year after Gmail launched.
Now both firms have reached a settlement though neither is saying what the terms, financial or otherwise, of that might be.
On their Gmail blog, Google say…
As a Brit, my friends and family often tell me they’re miffed that they get an @googlemail.com address instead of @gmail.com. Today I have good news for them: Google Mail is soon becoming Gmail again in the UK.
If you already have a Google email account in the UK, you’ll soon have the option to switch your existing @googlemail.com address to the matching @gmail.com one, but you’re also free to stick with @googlemail.com. And starting later this week, anybody who signs up for a new account in the UK will get an @gmail.com address. Since "gmail" is 50% fewer characters than "googlemail," we estimate this name change will save approximately 60 million keystrokes a day. At about 217 microjoules per keystroke, that’s about the energy of 20 bonbons saved every day!
We’ll be making this transition over the next week, and will update this post as the changes roll out. So to Aunty Pamela, Uncle Maurice, and everyone else in the UK, welcome to Gmail!
This will be broadly welcomed by Google mail users in the UK who have for a long time now been annoyed at the sheer length of their email addresses. I just hope their equivalent @Gmail.com addresses haven’t already been taken.
Written by : Mike Halsey www.connectedinternet.co.uk
Source : Gmail blog via BBC
