“Gmail” Outlawed in Germany - To Access Google Gmail in Germany Requires Go-Around   - 2,745 Views,

As a result, Google is banned from using the Gmail name in Germany, and German Gmail users and others in Germany who wish to access the Google email service are banned from accessing the service via the Gmail domain (gmail.com). Instead they must use an alternate URL.

German Gmail users were greeted with the following starting at the end of last week:

“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.”

The issue arose because German citizen Daniel Giersch has a paper mail service called “G-mail”, which he founded in 2000, as much as four years before Google launched Gmail. Gmail was launched in 2004.

In addition to being told in no uncertain terms that it could not use the Gmail name in Germany, the German courts have banned Google from any further attempts to grab the Gmail name for itself in Germany.