Yet Another Gmail

from the they're-everywhere! dept

It would appear that Google's lawyers didn't do a particularly good job scouring the world for the use of the Gmail name before launching the email service. A few months ago, the company officially renamed Gmail to Google Mail in Germany after the guy who owned the Gmail trademark in Germany wouldn't give it up. Then there's the research firm in the UK that's threatening to take Google to court over the name. The latest, however, is in China, where a Beijing company is offering web-based email under the Gmail name with a logo that looks quite like Google's. However, in this case, the company notes that they launched their Gmail (including the logo) long before Google launched Gmail. Of course, even if that's the case, Google may have a decent case of trademark infringement on the logo. It's clearly designed to look something like the Google logo (not the Gmail logo) -- with the same "G" and a similar font for the other letters. So, Google pretty clearly has a decent case for trademark infringement because there's likely to be confusion. If the Chinese firm changed their logo, though, then they'd have a pretty good claim to keep the name. Update: Some interesting notes in the comments. First, one person claims that spyware gets installed if you visit the Chinese Gmail site (which we never linked to here at all). I had visited it myself earlier and didn't notice anything getting installed... but your results may vary. Second, and more importantly, someone else looked back at the Internet Archive, and found that the Chinese Gmail (contrary to what they say) appears to have changed their logo to match Google's only after Gmail was launched.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  • identicon
    Ron, 26 Sep 2005 @ 11:11am

    Not so sure

    Look at the way back machine (www.archive.org), you'll find the first time they archived this page was April 2004, doesn't mean the page wasn't there before but look at the layout! It doesn't look like gmail at all, in fact it looks like they are just developing it.

    [archive.org] gmail.cn

    July 22nd 2004 is the first time it looks like GMail. Now have a look at GMail's archive

    [archive.org] gmail.com

    May 31 2004 is the first time GMail's page is up.... Looks to me that Google was first with the layout! I smell something funny here. - Ron

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Ron, 26 Sep 2005 @ 4:50pm

      Re: Not so sure

      Looks like I had the original dates wrong, but the conclusion and order is the same.
      Google.cn
      May 19 2004 Old Layout.
      May 24 2004 'Google' Layout.
      Google.com
      Jan 25 2004 Some unrelated website is hosted at Gmail.com
      April 12 2004 Google's new layout is available.
      So Googles was there at least 1 month earlier.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Bob3000, 26 Sep 2005 @ 11:47am

    China

    Ah yes, China, they are strict about copyrights and trademarks!

    LOL!

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      AZ, 26 Sep 2005 @ 1:54pm

      Re: China

      Wow looks like google is getting in trouble. Wonder if they will change the name here in the USA?

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    rad, 26 Sep 2005 @ 1:54pm

    spyware

    warning - went to the site to see their logo, and it installed a bunch of spyware and such on my system.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    keeponcoding, 26 Sep 2005 @ 3:02pm

    Active X's...

    As reported earlier: yes, the site attempts to automatically load active x controls, so just tread carefully!

    link to this | view in chronology ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.