14 DAY TRIAL // Earlier this year Google finally won the right to use the Gmail trademark in Germany. As it happened in several other places, the UK and Poland for example, when Google introduced Gmail, there was already a company using the name, in Germany's case G-Mail.
G-Mail offered a service where email would be printed out and sent via the regular mail.
It may sound like a joke, and Google even used the idea as one of its April Fools prank, but it is a real service and, at the time in 2004-2005, you can imagine that it was of some use to some people at least. That's probably not the case today.
Because of the trademark violation, Google could not use the Gmail brand anywhere, including in the email addresses, so German users were forced to use @googlemail.com, just like British users had to.
Otherwise, the service was the same and German users couldn't apply for usernames already in use as an @gmail.com email address. What's more, German users received emails addressed to @gmail.com rather than @googlemail.com.
With Google having won the trademark, the limitation no longer applies, and the company announced that users could begin to switch to an @gmail.com address.
All new users automatically get a Gmail address and existing users will be able to start using a Gmail address as the default one. Their old address will still work, both will be valid at the same time.
"As a German working on the Gmail team, my friends and family back home often ask why they have a @googlemail address instead of @gmail.com. Today, I’m happy to announce that is no longer the case: Google Mail is becoming Gmail in Germany," Google's Mark Striebeck, an engineer director, wrote.
