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February 19, 2007

The Polish Poets from gmail.pl

A group of Polish poets,
who like to call themselves
"Grupa Mlodych Artystow i Literatow",
or GMAIL, to make it short,
was sued by an Internet behemoth,
because they use gmail.pl
as their address for online meetings.

The corporation uses Gmail
as the name of a mail service,
who takes your privacy
in exchange of great features.
But poets were too proud
to give their name
and their online identity.

"We bought the name legally,
with our own money.
Nobody gave it to us for free.
We refuse to be deprived
of what we consider
is our property,"
Izabela Krawczyk said to AFP.

The Polish poets bought gmail.pl
at the sunset of last year.
They were surprised to see
it was available
and they felt lucky.

{ The second screenshot, licensed as "Creative Commons Attribution" by wayneandwax. }

8 comments:

  1. The corporation uses Gmail
    as the name of a mail service,
    who takes your privacy
    in exchange of great features.


    Great quote! May the poets not give up the fight.

    ReplyDelete
  2. So what problem has googlemail? They had nearly 2 years to register domain. it was taken now, so let it be. Why do gmail.pl have to give it back?

    ReplyDelete
  3. g00gle suckers claim only they have the rights to get that domain... Give it a try then.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hey, If the Google try to sue Grupa Mlodych Artystow i Literatow, they will have to bring an action in law in Polish court...

    I wish them luck... A typical court case takes at least a year (if you're lucky) and usually much longer...

    Even if the sue GMAiL, they have little chances to win, cause a name of a person/company/group takes precedence before a name of a service, as far as I know.
    If gmail was a registred Trade Mark in Poland, they would have right to the domain, but it is not.

    "gmail.pl" actually IS a registered Trade Mark, but, guess what? Yeah! It's not registered by Google inc.! It's owned by a small advertising company. Hard work to do, Google...

    By the time the trial comes to an end, anyone in Poland will know that domain doesn't belong to Google...

    Also it is known that Polish people always are on the side of attacked person/group. Google will lose its good opinion...

    There is one more thing to notice... Google registred a domain googlemail.pl There is no website there, even DNS servers don't respond. So, if the Google doesn't use googlemail.pl, where is any proof that they will use gmail.pl and not just block usage of a domain similar to their main domain?

    What happend to Googles "Don't be evil" slogan?

    ReplyDelete
  5. The way I'm thinking is:

    If Google as a corporation wants to own gmail.pl they should pay. How much? Much enough - it depends on how much worth that domain is for Google Inc. :D

    ReplyDelete
  6. [Update] August 2010

    This domain 'Gmail.pl' is being auctioned right now!
    (Follow the link)

    The current bid is at +/- 30k euro.
    No idea if Google itself is bidding (yet)..!?!

    Regards,
    Peter.

    ReplyDelete
  7. For anyone who is interested, it appears that Google can be beat! The domain gmail.pl is still in the hands of Polish poets.

    Maybe it was too expensive for Google...?

    ReplyDelete
  8. http://stefek99.tumblr.com/post/6619428041/its-been-a-long-story - it changes owner!

    ReplyDelete

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