From today, new subscribers to Gmail in the UK will NOT have @gmail.com address due to a trademark issue. From Google's UK website:
"You may have noticed the Google Mail logo. We are changing our service's name in the UK. Starting October 19, 2005, all new accounts will have @googlemail.com addresses."
Current @gmail.com email addresses in the UK will still function, but Google can't categorically say that they won't ever have to change.
http://mail.google.com/mail/help/intl/en-GB/googlemail.html |
I'm a bit confused by the FAQ re addresses ever changing or not. The first bit says what Philipp posted on the blog -
"Unfortunately, we don't know".
But then there is the next question –
# What if I'm a UK user who already has a Gmail address? Will I also need to change that address?
No, this change doesnt affect existing Gmail addresses. For now, our plan is only to issue @googlemail.com addresses to new users.
- which seems to say something slightly different...or am I missing something here?! |
I think the honest answer is that they don't know.
It looks like there's two different trademark problems here: some nice woman called Karen, and a nice German chap called Daniel, have both looked for this trademark. If they're forced to stop using Gmail in the UK, they will be forced to stop allowing us to use @gmail.com addresses. http://james.cridland.net/blog/2005/10/gmail-is-now-google-mail.html |
