Reaching Gmail in Germany requires six extra characters
Written on June 26, 2008 – 11:56 am
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Two weeks ago, Google Blogoscoped’s Philipp Lenssen was welcomed on gmail.com with the following 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.
Of course, he directly linked this to the lost trademark battle of Google. German Daniel Giersch owns “G-mail” and successfully sued the Internet giant for using it. Google had already replaced the Gmail logo with a Google Mail logo and now it seemed that they’ve retreated even further. Anyhow, a few hours later, Gmail appeared to be in its normal shape again.
But now, rumor has it that the sorry message is back…, for good. Several blogs like Slashdot, Betanews, and WebhostDirectory report that the screen is here to stay:
I’m sure on of our German readers can confirm this. If so, I feel sorry for you to type in mail.google.com as it’s six characters longer. That seems like a minor effort, but let’s assume you check your email ten times a day. Then, all of a sudden, it’s 60 characters extra. Now consider the number of Germans using Gmail, probably millions, and multiply it with 60. All this extra typing work for the copyright needs of one man. What’s this world coming to?
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By Steve 'Chippy' Paine on Jun 26, 2008
Yup. It’s still there today.
Not a big deal though.
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By Chuck Smith on Jun 26, 2008
Yeah, it’s true, I live in Berlin and had to update my bookmark on the Firefox bookmark toolbar. Other than that small inconvenience, no extra typing for me. Well, except for writing this comment… :)
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By Tjeerd Kramer on Jun 26, 2008
Who still types in the full address of a website anyway? Especially now with the Smart addressbar in the new Firefox v3…
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By Melle Gloerich on Jun 26, 2008
Tjeerd: Awesomebar that is :)
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By Chris Desouza on Jun 26, 2008
What the world is coming to is that these big corporations cannot bully everyone with reverse name hijackings they resort to to bully the little guy.
I came there originally first and so it is mine. And so should be the reasoning. Not who is bigger, so gets the pie.
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