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Google Resolves Gmail Name Dispute In UK

Posted by Soulskill on from the what's-in-a-name dept.

united_notions writes "Slashdot has previously reported the legal challenges over the Gmail brand in Europe. Now, the BBC reports that UK users can finally register @gmail.com addresses — and existing @googlemail.com users can switch to @gmail.com too. Google has put up a page describing the change."

48 comments

  1. Oh great! by JohnRabotnik · · Score: 1

    Just when I finally got used to "Google Mail"

    1. Re:Oh great! by BeardedChimp · · Score: 1

      I live in the uk and have always used mine as @gmail.com when giving out my email address and have had no problems.

    2. Re:Oh great! by Dupple · · Score: 2, Informative

      I think it depends when you registered for gmail. I've always had a gmail address. If they stood before the change was made, then they were still valid I think, either that or they were converted on the fly, and the reverse was probably true. I'm UK too

      --
      Watch those corners
    3. Re:Oh great! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      I doubt it. I live in the UK and I set my sister up with a gmail account 6 months ago when she was changing ISPs, she asked me if she could use @gmail.com instead of @googlemail.com , so I tested it and the @gmail variant worked fine then. So although they would only let you register for @googlemail.com they sent any email addressed to @gmail.com to your inbox anyway.

    4. Re:Oh great! by Golddess · · Score: 1

      That would be kinda scary, if when sending an email to example@gmail.com from the USA it went to one person, but sending it from the UK it went to another person.

      --
      "I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
  2. \s\googlemail\gmail by AndGodSed · · Score: 1

    I thought that googlemail would automatically change to gmail. At least that is how I remember it, unless I mmisunderstood the summary...

    --

    Seven Days with Ubuntu Unity

    1. Re:\s\googlemail\gmail by captain_dope_pants · · Score: 1

      According to Google's page you can send to @googlemail or @gmail and either one will just work. Not that it matters particularly as most people just have their contacts as Dave, Jim, Bob etc and couldn't care two hoots about what email address actually sits behind it.

      --
      while (true != false) process_more_stupid_code();
    2. Re:\s\googlemail\gmail by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      According to Google's page you can send to @googlemail or @gmail and either one will just work.

      Not that it matters particularly as most people just have their contacts as Dave, Jim, Bob etc and couldn't care two hoots about what email address actually sits behind it.

      I've live in the US and have had firstnamelastname@gmail.com since gmail first started sending invitations , at some point after the UK situation was put in place. a guy in the UK with the same first name and last name as me registered firstname.lastname@googlemail.com. Since gmail ignores dots, that would mean if he now has the option to use gmail, his mail would come to me.

      the reason i know about the guy in the UK with the similar address to me, is many people send him mail and type in gmail, and i get his mail.

  3. Re:Other business... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Yes, you are missing the fact that gmail *already has every single feature you mentioned*. You see that "Search Mail" button? Well look two elements to the right and you'll see a "Show search options" button. Try clicking it some time.

  4. Re:Other business... by mehrotra.akash · · Score: 3, Informative

    almost all of that can be accomplished using advanced search

  5. Re:Other business... by Zocalo · · Score: 1

    Am I missing something?

    Apparently so. Try clicking on the "Show Search Options" link by the GMail search box as that lets you limit your search to everything on your list except for the last one about attachments, also look at the help topic for "Searching" as there is also an extensive set of search keywords to further control what matches the search criteria.

    --
    UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
  6. "this name change will save approximately 60 mill" by FuckingNickName · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Gmail users aren't the sort to type out full e-mail addresses, or even know what they are.

    While we're at MPAA-piracy-style stats to pretend they care about their users, think of how many billions of keystrokes and/or bytes of bandwidth could be saved if Google advertised the gogle.com misspelling it owns!

  7. Dodgy maths... by Bearhouse · · Score: 1

    FTA: "Since 'gmail' is 50% fewer characters than 'googlemail' we estimate this name change will save approximately 60 million keystrokes a day," wrote software engineer Greg Bullock on Google's Gmail blog.

    OK, so that's 5 characters less. So he claims that 12 million gmail addresses are manually typed per day?
    I find that hard to believe. Surely most addresses are cut & pasted, or automatically included as a reply, or from an address book lookup?

    1. Re:Dodgy maths... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Think signing into facebook or myspace.

    2. Re:Dodgy maths... by zennyboy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I think it was humour

    3. Re:Dodgy maths... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      only problem is you then have to change your Facebook/Myspace email address too... because even after "officially" your email is gmail you still have googlemail for your login at FB/MS

    4. Re:Dodgy maths... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't use those myself, but in most cases my browser auto-completes my email address for me.

    5. Re:Dodgy maths... by Bearhouse · · Score: 1

      1. Activate 'master password' option in firefox
      2. Store 'trivial' passwords (facebook..) in ff
       

    6. Re:Dodgy maths... by Solandri · · Score: 4, Informative

      It was said in jest, and the humor was apparently lost on the BBC. The full quote is: "we estimate this name change will save something like 60 million keystrokes a day. At approximately 217 microjoules per keystroke, that's about the energy of 20 bonbons saved every day!"

      P.S. I like the idea of measuring energy use in bonbons.

    7. Re:Dodgy maths... by SpaghettiPattern · · Score: 1

      I like the idea of measuring energy use in bonbons.

      Indeed binge eating actually is power!!! (Measured in bonbons per second.)

      --

      I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
    8. Re:Dodgy maths... by jo_ham · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I prefer using Horses per Submarine as my units.

      Anything else is just pandering to the SI crowd!

    9. Re:Dodgy maths... by seanvaandering · · Score: 1

      Last I checked, I automatically log into gmail mostly on a daily basis, unless for some reason the gmail cookie gets cleared. This is a gmail software engineer? He should clearly know better...

    10. Re:Dodgy maths... by ooshna · · Score: 1

      Yeah but a lot of places don't like work or a public library.

    11. Re:Dodgy maths... by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      Think signing into facebook or myspace.

      I don't use either, but surely you can copy and paste like everywhere else?

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
  8. Re:Other business... by Randle_Revar · · Score: 2, Informative

    1) looks fine to me

    2) just add restrictions to your search

    after:2010/03/01
    before:2010/03/01

    from:Alice

    label:work

    has:attachment

    etc.

    http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=7190

    --
    Climate Progress - Hell and High Water
  9. Re:Other business... by danny_lehman · · Score: 1

    They may just be holding out on upgrades, as google wave is due sometime.. soon? and btw you can do most of that with "show search options"

  10. Collateral Damage by Guillaume+Castel · · Score: 1

    That's why my @googlemail.com contact suddently disappeared from my Android phone's list of contacts...

  11. Aww by caluml · · Score: 1

    Awww. That means it'll be hard to distinguish between the people in the UK who got it early, and those who didn't. My share price has dropped 15% on this news.

    --
    Get your own free personal location tracker
    1. Re:Aww by thetoadwarrior · · Score: 1

      I know, it was a good piece of internet snobbery that I enjoyed.

    2. Re:Aww by obarel · · Score: 1

      Yes, we really need @gmailwhileitwasinviteonly.com.

  12. Trying to be funny by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Fromt the TFA:

    "The good news is that "gmail" is 50% fewer characters than "googlemail," and with so much emailing going on these days, we estimate this name change will save something like 60 million keystrokes a day. At approximately 217 microjoules per keystroke, that's about the energy of 20 bonbons saved every day!"

    They [google] always try to be funny, which is a good thing (a suppose).

  13. @gmail.com has always worked anyway... by carvell · · Score: 1

    I've had an @googlemail.co.uk address for a long while, and if you sent mail to youraddress@gmail.com instead of youraddress@googlemail.co.uk you always ended up receiving the mail fine.

    The only difference for UK people wishing to 'convert' their email address to @gmail.com is what's displayed on the gmail.com site when you log in.

    1. Re:@gmail.com has always worked anyway... by Duncan+Booth · · Score: 1

      No, there are other differences but they are pretty obscure. If you use Google AppEngine then if you have a Gmail address you'll find your Gmail name is reserved so that you can use it as an AppEngine site but nobody else can use it. If you have a Googlemail address your userid is still reserved in AppEngine but you can't claim it. Also when AppEngine first came out it wasn't possible to give a googlemail user permission to manage a site: you could permit a gmail user or someone with a non Google email. They fixed that but there have been several cases where googlemail didn't work quite like gmail on newly released Google applications.

    2. Re:@gmail.com has always worked anyway... by jonbryce · · Score: 1

      and what appears in the From: field when you send emails out to people using the web interface.

  14. Re:"this name change will save approximately 60 mi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

    mods: it is an abuse of moderation to overrate an unmoderated post. If you disagree, debate it.

  15. Causes problems with Android by thetartanavenger · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I made the change this morning, and I've just had to switch back due to issues I've had with my android phone. Switching to gmail.com causes numerous logins to fail because they attempt to do so using the googlemail.com login and are instead rejected. Changing the username on my phone involves resetting many of the default options and having to restore a load of data on it manually, so the best option was switching back to googlemail.com.

    This isn't a problem for me, but just a heads up for those using android. Receiving mail using the gmail.com extension still works with the googlemail.com setting, I'm just unsure if you can send from a gmail.com login if you haven't made the switch.

    --
    Who need's speling and grammar?
    1. Re:Causes problems with Android by Duncan+Booth · · Score: 3, Informative

      To change the user on an Android phone you need to go into application settings and delete the stored data for "Google Mail", "Google Mail Settings" and "Google Apps", Then reboot and the phone should prompt for your login details. No need to restore anything. At least that worked for me.

    2. Re:Causes problems with Android by OutOfMyTree · · Score: 1

      The other way round for me. I registered my Android in the UK to a new gmail address last summer. All fine until the last couple of weeks, when Google seemed to be aggressively editing my login to googlemail on my desktop -- not helpful for those apps which sync to the cloud. Fortunately I didn't run into obvious problems on the phone itself.

      So today I have had to positively fix that account back to gmail, whereas the old, old account I use for Reader has stayed gmail throughout. But I made a new one about 3 years back for an organisation, and that has been googlemail, despite being registered as gmail. Very odd.

      I suspect the story is not very enthusiastic enforcement by Google, with a demonstration of "good faith" in the last few weeks.

  16. I'm confused by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm confused. I live in the UK and have three gmail accounts - had from years - didn't know I wasn't supposed to. Why doesn't anybody else have them?

  17. Europe != UK by owlstead · · Score: 1

    I've had my Gmail account for ages now (I'm located in the Netherlands) so it's very probably just an issue within the UK. Even then you can probably get around it using a proxy when registering. I do believe that most people here will know where the UK is located. So why the "legal challenges in Europe" thing? It's certainly nowhere in the main article. Or is "united_notions" holding back?

    1. Re:Europe != UK by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's not only the UK.

      As far as I know, Germans still get @googlemail.com

  18. Re:"this name change will save approximately 60 mi by tepples · · Score: 1

    If a post has the karma bonus, some moderators consider that the same thing as having been modded Underrated once.

  19. You got me wrong! by bogaboga · · Score: 1

    I knew those options were available but what I missed was to ask Google to automatically sort those found messages for me. This way, my memory can be triggered in case I have 900 results as I said.

    Sometimes you know something exists but cannot remember until you see something else. This is what I was talking about. It happened to me recently. My search term was "details" and Gmail returned 311 messages. I also knew that the attachment this message had was in 'tiff' format.

    With my suggested approach, a message with a 'tiff' format attachment would have been displayed...already sorted for me to see. The current approach is still wanting, inadequate and can be made better. Yahoo does this FYI.

    1. Re:You got me wrong! by Randle_Revar · · Score: 1

      I see what you're saying now. Could be a useful feature, I suppose.

      --
      Climate Progress - Hell and High Water
  20. good for them by hesaigo999ca · · Score: 1

    1)settle out of court
    2) profit
    3) stocks rise
    4) profit again