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Gmail Becomes Google Mail in the UK

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the well-thats-just-a-pain dept.

akadruid writes "As of today, UK Gmail users are seeing 'Google Mail' at the top of their Gmail accounts, and Google is warning they may lose their '@gmail.com' addresses in the future. All new signups from the UK will be assigned '@googlemail.com' addresses, and existing accounts will be able to use either domain for now. Gmail's help pages explain this is related to their ongoing dispute regarding the Gmail trademark."

3 of 337 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Do no evil, and ignore the courts by Motherfucking+Shit · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Google obviously thinks they are going to win this case or else wouldn't they want to extend googlemail to all sections of the globe?
    They've already done so. Email sent to username@googlemail.com will be delivered to username@gmail.com, regardless of where the account owner lives. If you have an existing GMail account, try sending yourself an email at username@googlemail.com. You'll get the message.

    Anyone who's still unconvinced that this is fully transparent,

    dig mx gmail.com
    dig mx googlemail.com
    --
    "BSD: Free as in speech. Linux: Free as in beer. Windows 10: Free as in herpes." --Man On Pink Corner in #52607549.
  2. The trademark registrations by Rogerborg · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Show Google filing 6 months before anyone else in the UK.

    Now, just because they registered first doesn't mean that another company wasn't already using it as a de facto trade mark, but it does occur to me that the value of the mark should be determined by what it was before Google started using it, not what it's worth now. That the other claimant has a total market value of £3.24m ($5.6m) should be an indication that the GMail mark isn't worth "$48m to $64m" as they claim.

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  3. Double-edged sword by pedestrian+crossing · · Score: 5, Interesting

    When I signed up for Hotmail, I entered my country as 'Pakistan', since I didn't think it was Microsoft's business what country I'm from/in. Also, I don't live in the country I'm from, so it's pretty much meaningless anyway.

    But lo and behold, when Hotmail upped their storage to 250MB, my account stayed at 2.5MB (later upped to 25MB). Why? Because I'm not in the USA. Do you think changing my profile to USA upped the limit? Hint - the answer is not yes.

    Yes, I know Hotmail != Gmail, but the point is that initial profile choices can have unintended consequences...

    --
    A house divided against itself cannot stand.