14 DAY TRIAL // Gmail is the youngest of the big webmail providers, yet it has managed to rise quite spectacularly in just six years. It’s now the third biggest email-service provider in the world. In the UK, though, Gmail is nowhere to be seen. There, Google Mail has proven much more popular than Gmail, so to speak, though it wasn’t exactly a choice. Due to a trademark dispute, Google was forced to drop the Gmail label in the UK and use the dull Google Mail name instead. Not anymore, Gmail is returning to Google UK after five years of exile.
“Google Mail is soon becoming Gmail again in the UK. If you already have a Google email account in the UK, you'll soon have the option to switch your existing @googlemail.com address to the matching @gmail.com one, but you're also free to stick with @googlemail.com,” Greg Bullock, software engineer at Google, announced.
“And starting later this week, anybody who signs up for a new account in the UK will get an @gmail.com address. Since ‘gmail’ is 50% fewer characters than ‘googlemail,’ we estimate this name change will save approximately 60 million keystrokes a day. At about 217 microjoules per keystroke, that's about the energy of 20 bonbons saved every day!,” he explained the astounding energy savings this small change generated.
For the users, the change shouldn't’t be too complicated. They will be offered the option to switch their email addresses to @gmail rather than @googlemail. It’s unclear if they will be able to receive emails at their old address as well, though that’s likely to happen, at least temporarily. If they like their old and distinctive address, they can just keep that.
Google had to change the name of the service from Gmail to Google Mail in 2005 in the UK, as another company was already using the trademark. The dispute was settled last year and Google is now ready with all the preparations for the switch.