Google Mail Finally Becomes Gmail in the UK

Posted 05/04/2010 at 2:16pm | by Ryan Whitwam

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It's taken Five years, but Google's email service in the UK is finally shedding its Googlemail domain, and becoming plain old Gmail. The delay stems from a trademark dispute with a company called Independent International Investment Research (IIR). The original settlement request was apparently unacceptable to Google, and they took to using the Google Mail name instead.

With the issues finally worked out, users will be given the option to use a @gmail address soon. Starting this week, anyone that signs up for a new account will receive a @gmail address. Google also pointed out that since typing gmail required 50% fewer keystrokes than typing googlemail, the change could save 60 million keystrokes per day. That amounts to 217 microjoules, or 20 bonbons worth of energy saved per day. Leave it to Google engineers to measure energy using bonbons as units.

Google said that changing addresses would not affect the functionality or settings of the account. Have any of you Brits become so attached to those extra letters that you'll stick with Googlemail?