Category: Technology Author : JR Posted: June 12, 2008
Tags : Germany, gmail, google, google mail
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Gmail? Not In Germany

Google is evidently no longer using the name Gmail in Germany.

Philipp Lenssen discovered the interesting change over on his Google Blogoscoped site. Apparently, Lenssen says, navigating to gmail.com in Germany now results in a splashscreen message:

“We can’t provide service under the Gmail name in Germany; we’re called Google Mail here instead.

If you’re traveling in Germany, you can access your mail at http://mail.google.com.

Oh, and we’d like to link the URL above, but we’re not allowed to do that either. Bummer.

For general information about Google, please visit www.google.com or www.google.de.”

The site — now accessible only via mail.google.com in Germany — also uses a logo saying “Google Mail” instead of “Gmail” when you load it there.

Lenssen points out the possible connection between this and an ongoing battle between Google and a German man who had apparently already trademarked the name “G-Mail.”

Bet that guy is feeling pretty damned big right about now.

Louis

I've only seen the warning today... damn, somebody hack* the DNS entries, I want my gmail.com back! :(

* not illegally of course. If you run your own DNS-server you can redirect gmail.com to mail.google.com (or via a 3rd server that does an HTTP-redirect)

Tobi

Actually it is Google who made the mistake. This man owned the German rights for the name GMail in the first place, and Google apparently started their service here without checking name rights. The person who offers services under gmail.de has every interest that his more or less innovative concept is not confused with Google, who only offer a trivial freemail service without major innovations.

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Gmail? Not In Germany

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