Gmail
Encyclopedia
Gmail is a free, advertising
-supported email service provided by Google
. Users may access Gmail as secure
webmail, as well via POP3
or IMAP
protocols. Gmail was launched as an invitation-only beta release on April 1, 2004 and it became available to the general public on February 7, 2007, though still in beta status at that time. The service was upgraded from beta status on July 7, 2009, along with the rest of the Google Apps
suite.
With an initial storage capacity offer of 1 GB
per user, Gmail significantly increased the webmail standard for free storage from the 2 to 4 MB
its competitors such as Hotmail
offered at that time. Individual Gmail messages, including attachments, may be up to 25 MB, which is larger than many other mail services support. Gmail has a search
-oriented interface and a "conversation view" similar to an Internet forum
. Gmail is noted by web developer
s for its pioneering use of AJAX
. Gmail runs on Google GFE/2.0 on Linux
. , it had 260 million users worldwide.
Google has announced that starting November 22, 2011 they will not support the Gmail for BlackBerry
native application, although BlackBerry users can continue to access Gmail through the mobile web app in their BlackBerry web browser.
, Google Docs and Gmail) from 20 GB (US$5/year) to 16 TB (US$4096/year).
On April 1, 2005, the first anniversary of Gmail, Google announced the increase from 1 GB. Georges Harik, the product management director for Gmail, stated that Google would "keep giving people more space forever."
s and games. Users can enable or disable Labs features selectively and provide feedback about each of them. This allows Gmail engineers to obtain user input about new features to improve them and also to assess their popularity and whether they merit developing into regular Gmail features. All Labs features are experimental and are subject to termination at any time.
, this provides information to help the system identify similar future messages for all Gmail users. Users may tune the system to allow mail marked as spam to be handled in particular ways.
s. Gmail Mobile offers many of the features as Gmail delivered effectively to smaller, mobile screens. Users have the ability to compose, read, archive, reply, forward, mark unread, add a star, add custom labels or trash email messages.
On September 22, 2009 Google brought Push Mail support to its Gmail service using Google Sync
for iPhone
and iPod Touch
platforms.
In order to use the service a user will need a Gmail account and a mobile device that meets the following requirements:
Gmail Mobile was released on December 16, 2005, and is available in more than 40 languages.
. It is delivered automatically to Gmail website users who are signed in using the device's Safari browser; they may choose to revert to the traditional layout or use the native IMAP client.
A new Gmail gadget
for iGoogle
uses interface elements from Gmail mobile, which includes the two pane layout.
. The service allows people to make free calls from their Gmail account to U.S. and Canada, at least through the end of 2011. Gmail account users can also call other countries on a fee basis.
The service logged over 1 million calls in 24 hours on 26 August 2010.
. This HTML5-powered app is based on the Gmail web app on tablets. On April 11, 2011 Google engineer Sundar Pichai
revealed that Google employees had been testing the app together with offline versions of Google Docs and Google Calendar
for months and that the apps would be launched in the summer of 2011.
several years before it was announced to the public. Initially the email client was available for use only by Google employees internally. Google announced Gmail to the public on April 1, 2004. IMAP support was added on October 24, 2007.
was used by a free email service offered by Garfield.com, online home of the comic strip
Garfield
. After moving to a different domain, that service has since been discontinued.
, Gmail's canonical
URI
changed fromhttp://gmail.google.com/gmail/ to http://mail.google.com/mail/ . , those who typed in the former URI were redirected to the latter.
number
that supports text messaging
. In other countries this is not required for sign-up, according to Google due to service limitations.
Google explains this:
In some cases, Google may allow a certain number of accounts to be created per IP address
without requiring a phone number. In certain countries, one can also request a voice call with a verification code as an alternative to the text message. Voice calls are only available during certain hours and will not be listed as an option outside those hours.
2007, Google made fun of Gmail by introducing "Gmail Paper", where a user could click a button and Gmail would purportedly mail an ad-supported paper copy email archive for free.
2008 Google introduced a fake service, "Gmail Custom Time", which would allegedly allow a user to send up to ten emails per year with forged timestamps. The hoax stated that by bending spacetime on the Google servers, the emails actually get routed through the fourth dimension
of time itself before reaching their intended recipient.
2009 Google introduced a service called Gmail Autopilot by CADIE. According to Google, the service purported to automatically read and respond to emails for the user. It appeared to work by analyzing messages for the emotions expressed in the message and either providing advice to the user or automatically responding to the message.
2011 Google introduced a service called Gmail Motion which allowed users to navigate emails, send and even dictate messages through the user's physical actions using webcams. For example, to send an email, the user would perform the action of licking a stamp, and posting it. After the user signed up, they would be directed to an "April Fools'" message.
These coding changes mean that only users of Internet Explorer 7
, Firefox 2
, Google Chrome
and Safari 3.0
(or more recent versions) are officially supported by Gmail and can fully use the new code. Opera 9.5
and more recent versions are not officially tested but are expected to "work with all of Gmail's features". Internet Explorer 5.5+, Netscape
7.1+, Mozilla 1.4+, Firefox 0.8, Safari 1.3 and some other browsers will give limited functionality. Other browsers may be redirected to the basic-HTML-only version of Gmail.
During the week of January 18, 2008, Google released an update that changed the way Gmail loads JavaScript. This caused the failure of some third-party extensions.
On December 12, 2008, Gmail added support for faster PDF
viewing within the browser.
in email will be reduced. Furthermore, email that non-subscribers choose to send to Gmail accounts is scanned by Gmail as well, even though those senders never agreed to Gmail's terms of service or privacy policy
. Google can change its privacy policy unilaterally and Google is technically able to cross-reference cookies across its information-rich product line to make dossiers on individuals. However, most email systems make use of server-side content scanning in order to check for spam
.
In 2004 privacy advocates also regard the lack of disclosed data retention and correlation policies as problematic. Google has the ability to combine information contained in a person's email messages with information from Internet searches. Google has not confirmed how long such information is kept or how it can be used. One of the concerns is that it could be of interest to law enforcement agencies. More than 30 privacy and civil liberties organizations have urged Google to suspend Gmail service until these issues are resolved.
Gmail's privacy policy used to contain the clause: "residual copies of deleted messages and accounts may take up to 60 days to be deleted from our active servers and may remain in our offline backup systems". However, this statement does not appear in Gmail's current privacy policy. Less specifically, Google have stated that they will "make reasonable efforts to remove deleted information from our systems as quickly as is practical."
Google points out that Gmail adheres to most industry-wide practices.
Google defends its position by citing their use of email-scanning to the user's benefit. Google states that Gmail refrains from displaying ads next to potentially sensitive messages such as those that mention tragedy, catastrophe, or death.
Gmail accounts of human rights activists in China were hacked in sophisticated attacks — thought to use phishing
and exploit a vulnerability in Internet Explorer — in late 2009. Any (web mail or other) mail system which stores and retains user's email contents is an attractive target for such attacks, but Gmail is popular with security-conscious users because of its early HTTPS
secure (encrypted) connection support, and its more-recent HTTPS-only default setting.
The launch of Google Buzz
as an opt-out
social network
immediately drew criticism for violating user privacy because it automatically allowed Gmail users' contacts to view their other contacts.
By design, Gmail does not deliver all of a user's emails. When downloading mail through POP or IMAP access, Gmail fails to deliver messages that users have sent to themselves if the client has a copy of it already.
It also does not deliver to a user's inbox (via any access interface) those messages that users have sent to mailing list
s and which they might expect to receive back via the mailing list.
Before September 29, 2010, Gmail sorted email only by conversations (threads), which can be a problem for large conversations. For example, if a user sends a query to a large group of people, all of the responses are stored in a single conversation that is impossible to break apart. There is no way to search for responses from one user without getting the entire conversation. While deletion of individual emails is possible, most operations, such as archiving and labeling, can be performed only on whole conversations. Conversations cannot be split up or combined. As a result of complaints from some users, Google made conversation view optional starting September 29, 2010.
In 2009, Google continued to experience outages across its network, leaving users without access to their email, calendars, and virtual files.
Key outage dates include:
On July 30, 2009, Gmail announced an update to resolve this issue. The updated custom 'From: feature allows users to send messages from Gmail using a custom SMTP server, instead of Gmail's. However, the issue is still present for users whose custom email address is a second Gmail account, rather than an account on a separate domain.
s "100 Best Products of 2005", behind Mozilla Firefox
. Gmail also won 'Honorable Mention' in the Bottom Line Design Awards 2005. In September 2006, Forbes magazine declared Gmail as the best webmail. In November 2006, Gmail received PC World's 4 star rating.
Gmail has drawn many favorable reviews from users for generous space quotas and unique organization.
On July 4, 2005 Google announced that Gmail Deutschland would be rebranded as Google Mail. The domain gmail.com is unavailable in Germany
due to trademark disputes, in which cases users must use the domain googlemail.com. From that point forward, visitors originating from an IP address
determined to be in Germany
would be forwarded to googlemail.com where they could obtain an email address containing the new domain. Any German user who wants a gmail.com address must sign up for an account through a proxy
. German users who were already registered were allowed to keep their old addresses.
The domains are interchangeable so users obliged to use the googlemail.com domain are unable to select addresses already chosen by gmail.com users. Inbound emails sent to either googlemail.com or gmail.com addresses will reach the user. When registering for an online service, Google Mail users must use the googlemail.com form of their email address to ensure that any administrative emails they send to the service, such as confirmation messages, are recognized.
The German naming issue is due to a trademark dispute between Google and Daniel Giersch, who owns a German company called "G-mail" which provides the service of printing out email from senders and sending the print-out via postal mail to the intended recipients. On January 30, 2007, the EU's Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market
ruled in favor of Giersch.
Google spoofed "offering" the same service in the Gmail Paper April Fool's Day joke in 2007.
This lawsuit was lost and the website today remains the writers' website.
n paid mail redirect service called gmail.ru owns the "Gmail" trademark in the Russian Federation.
The gmail.ru domain name dates from January 27, 2003.
version of Gmail to Google Mail because of a dispute with the UK company Independent International Investment Research.
Users who registered before the switch to Google Mail were able to keep their Gmail address, although the Gmail logo was replaced with a Google Mail logo. Users who signed up after the name change receive a googlemail.com address, although a reverse of either in the sent email will still deliver it to the same place.
In September 2009 Google began to change the branding of UK accounts back to Gmail following the resolution of the trademark dispute.
On May 3, 2010, Google announced that they would start to phase out the googlemail.com domain in the UK. Existing users will get the option to switch to gmail.com, while new users will be given a gmail.com address by default. This also required Android phone users to perform a factory reset (requiring a back-up to prevent data loss) to restore phone functionality.
For example, Hotmail
increased space for some users from 2 MB to 25 MB, with 250 MB after 30 days, and 2 GB for Hotmail Plus accounts. Yahoo! Mail
went from 4 MB to 100 MB and 2 GB for Yahoo! Mail Plus accounts. Yahoo! Mail storage then increased to 250 MB and in late April 2005 to 1 GB. Yahoo! Mail announced that it would be providing "unlimited" storage to all its users in March 2007 and began providing it in May 2007. Gawab.com was the first email provider who offered free 2 GB space for email account.
These were all seen as moves to stop existing users from switching to Gmail and to capitalize on the newly rekindled public interest in web mail services. The desire to catch up was especially noted in the case of MSN's Hotmail, which upgraded its email storage from 250 MB to the new Windows Live Hotmail which includes 5 GB of storage that grows with you (expands if necessary). In November 2006, MSN Hotmail upgraded all free accounts to 1 GB of storage.
In June 2005, AOL started providing all AIM
screen names with their own email accounts with 2 GB of storage.
Google may terminate a Gmail account after nine months of inactivity. Other webmail services have different, often shorter, times for marking an account as inactive. Yahoo! Mail deactivates dormant accounts after four months.
As well as increasing storage limits following the launch of Gmail, Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail also enhanced their email interfaces. During 2005 Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail matched Gmail's attachment size of 10 MB. Following the footsteps of Gmail, Yahoo! launched the Yahoo! Mail Beta service and Microsoft launched Windows Live Hotmail, both incorporating Ajax
interfaces. Google increased the maximum attachment size to 20 MB in May 2007 and to 25 MB in June 2009.
Advertising
Advertising is a form of communication used to persuade an audience to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common...
-supported email service provided by Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
. Users may access Gmail as secure
Https
Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure is a combination of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol with SSL/TLS protocol to provide encrypted communication and secure identification of a network web server...
webmail, as well via POP3
Post Office Protocol
In computing, the Post Office Protocol is an application-layer Internet standard protocol used by local e-mail clients to retrieve e-mail from a remote server over a TCP/IP connection. POP and IMAP are the two most prevalent Internet standard protocols for e-mail retrieval. Virtually all modern...
or IMAP
Internet Message Access Protocol
Internet message access protocol is one of the two most prevalent Internet standard protocols for e-mail retrieval, the other being the Post Office Protocol...
protocols. Gmail was launched as an invitation-only beta release on April 1, 2004 and it became available to the general public on February 7, 2007, though still in beta status at that time. The service was upgraded from beta status on July 7, 2009, along with the rest of the Google Apps
Google Apps
Google Apps is a service from Google providing independently customizable versions of several Google products under a custom domain name. It features several Web applications with similar functionality to traditional office suites, including: Gmail, Google Groups, Google Calendar, Talk, Docs and...
suite.
With an initial storage capacity offer of 1 GB
Gigabyte
The gigabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information storage. The prefix giga means 109 in the International System of Units , therefore 1 gigabyte is...
per user, Gmail significantly increased the webmail standard for free storage from the 2 to 4 MB
Megabyte
The megabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information storage or transmission with two different values depending on context: bytes generally for computer memory; and one million bytes generally for computer storage. The IEEE Standards Board has decided that "Mega will mean 1 000...
its competitors such as Hotmail
Hotmail
Windows Live Hotmail, formerly known as MSN Hotmail and commonly referred to simply as Hotmail, is a free web-based email service operated by Microsoft as part of its Windows Live group. It was founded by Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith and launched in July 1996 as "HoTMaiL". It was one of the first...
offered at that time. Individual Gmail messages, including attachments, may be up to 25 MB, which is larger than many other mail services support. Gmail has a search
Search engine
A search engine is an information retrieval system designed to help find information stored on a computer system. The search results are usually presented in a list and are commonly called hits. Search engines help to minimize the time required to find information and the amount of information...
-oriented interface and a "conversation view" similar to an Internet forum
Internet forum
An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are at least temporarily archived...
. Gmail is noted by web developer
Web developer
A web developer is a software developer or software engineer who specializes in, or is specifically engaged in, the development of World Wide Web applications, or distributed network applications that are run over HTTP from a web server to a web browser....
s for its pioneering use of AJAX
Ajax (programming)
Ajax is a group of interrelated web development methods used on the client-side to create asynchronous web applications...
. Gmail runs on Google GFE/2.0 on Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
. , it had 260 million users worldwide.
Google has announced that starting November 22, 2011 they will not support the Gmail for BlackBerry
BlackBerry
BlackBerry is a line of mobile email and smartphone devices developed and designed by Canadian company Research In Motion since 1999.BlackBerry devices are smartphones, designed to function as personal digital assistants, portable media players, internet browsers, gaming devices, and much more...
native application, although BlackBerry users can continue to access Gmail through the mobile web app in their BlackBerry web browser.
Storage
The Gmail service currently provides more than 7 GB of free storage per account. Users can rent additional storage (shared between Picasa Web AlbumsPicasa
Picasa is an image organizer and image viewer for organizing and editing digital photos, plus an integrated photo-sharing website, originally created by Idealab in 2002 and owned by Google since 2004. "Picasa" is a blend of the name of Spanish painter Pablo Picasso, the phrase mi casa for "my...
, Google Docs and Gmail) from 20 GB (US$5/year) to 16 TB (US$4096/year).
On April 1, 2005, the first anniversary of Gmail, Google announced the increase from 1 GB. Georges Harik, the product management director for Gmail, stated that Google would "keep giving people more space forever."
Gmail Labs
The Gmail Labs feature, introduced on June 5, 2008, allows users to test new or experimental features of Gmail, such as bookmarking of important email messages, custom keyboard shortcutKeyboard shortcut
In computing, a keyboard shortcut is a finite set of one or more keys that invoke a software or operating system operation when triggered by the user. A meaning of term "keyboard shortcut" can vary depending on software manufacturer...
s and games. Users can enable or disable Labs features selectively and provide feedback about each of them. This allows Gmail engineers to obtain user input about new features to improve them and also to assess their popularity and whether they merit developing into regular Gmail features. All Labs features are experimental and are subject to termination at any time.
Spam filter
Gmail's spam filtering features a community-driven system: when any user marks an email as spamE-mail spam
Email spam, also known as junk email or unsolicited bulk email , is a subset of spam that involves nearly identical messages sent to numerous recipients by email. Definitions of spam usually include the aspects that email is unsolicited and sent in bulk. One subset of UBE is UCE...
, this provides information to help the system identify similar future messages for all Gmail users. Users may tune the system to allow mail marked as spam to be handled in particular ways.
Gmail Mobile
Gmail Mobile is a version of Google's Gmail email service. It is a free service, developed to provide access to Gmail from mobile devices such as cell phones, or smartphoneSmartphone
A smartphone is a high-end mobile phone built on a mobile computing platform, with more advanced computing ability and connectivity than a contemporary feature phone. The first smartphones were devices that mainly combined the functions of a personal digital assistant and a mobile phone or camera...
s. Gmail Mobile offers many of the features as Gmail delivered effectively to smaller, mobile screens. Users have the ability to compose, read, archive, reply, forward, mark unread, add a star, add custom labels or trash email messages.
On September 22, 2009 Google brought Push Mail support to its Gmail service using Google Sync
Google Sync
Google Sync is a service from Google that provides over-the-air synchronization of Gmail, Google Contacts, and Google Calendar with PC and mobile device Mail, Calendar and Address Book applications. As you switch phones, tablets, and computers, your Gmail, address book, and calendar are synched to...
for iPhone
IPhone
The iPhone is a line of Internet and multimedia-enabled smartphones marketed by Apple Inc. The first iPhone was unveiled by Steve Jobs, then CEO of Apple, on January 9, 2007, and released on June 29, 2007...
and iPod Touch
IPod Touch
The iPod Touch is a portable media player, personal digital assistant, handheld game console, and Wi-Fi mobile device designed and marketed by Apple Inc. The iPod Touch adds the multi-touch graphical user interface to the iPod line...
platforms.
- It must have InternetInternetThe Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
access and a WAPWireless Application ProtocolWireless Application Protocol is a technical standard for accessing information over a mobile wireless network.A WAP browser is a web browser for mobile devices such as mobile phones that uses the protocol.Before the introduction of WAP, mobile service providers had limited opportunities to offer...
enabled web browserWeb browserA web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content... - It must be XHTMLXHTMLXHTML is a family of XML markup languages that mirror or extend versions of the widely-used Hypertext Markup Language , the language in which web pages are written....
compliant - It must have cookiesHTTP cookieA cookie, also known as an HTTP cookie, web cookie, or browser cookie, is used for an origin website to send state information to a user's browser and for the browser to return the state information to the origin site...
enabled and the mobile network must also allow cookies to be set - It must allow SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) traffic.
Gmail Mobile was released on December 16, 2005, and is available in more than 40 languages.
Gmail on iPad
On April 3, 2010, Google announced a new two-pane layout designed specifically for the iPadIPad
The iPad is a line of tablet computers designed, developed and marketed by Apple Inc., primarily as a platform for audio-visual media including books, periodicals, movies, music, games, and web content. The iPad was introduced on January 27, 2010 by Apple's then-CEO Steve Jobs. Its size and...
. It is delivered automatically to Gmail website users who are signed in using the device's Safari browser; they may choose to revert to the traditional layout or use the native IMAP client.
A new Gmail gadget
Gadget
A gadget is a small technological object that has a particular function, but is often thought of as a novelty. Gadgets are invariably considered to be more unusually or cleverly designed than normal technological objects at the time of their invention...
for iGoogle
IGoogle
iGoogle , a service of Google, is a customizable Ajax-based startpage or personal web portal . Google originally launched the service in May 2005...
uses interface elements from Gmail mobile, which includes the two pane layout.
Google Buzz
On February 9, 2010, Google commenced their new service, Google Buzz, which integrates with Gmail allowing users to share links and media, as well as status updates. Buzz was launched with an automatic opt-in, causing an uproar in the Gmail community which led Google to quickly undo its initial moves.Google Voice in Gmail chat
In August 2010, Google released a plugin that provides integrated telephone service within Gmail's Google Chat interface. This service initially lacked an official name, with Google referring to it as "Google Voice in Gmail chat" and also "Call Phones in Gmail", but is now called Google Video and Voice ChatGoogle voice
Search by voice is a branded name for a technology to "search by voice on your [digital device]", such as a mobile phone or PC, i.e. have the device search for data upon entering information on what to search into the device by speaking....
. The service allows people to make free calls from their Gmail account to U.S. and Canada, at least through the end of 2011. Gmail account users can also call other countries on a fee basis.
The service logged over 1 million calls in 24 hours on 26 August 2010.
Offline Google Mail
On August 31, 2011, it was announced on the Official Gmail Blog that Offline Google Mail was launched as a Chrome web app at the Google Chrome Web StoreChrome Web Store
The Chrome Web Store is an online store from Google. It was announced at the Google I/O conference on May 19, 2010 by Vic Gundotra and released on December 6, 2010...
. This HTML5-powered app is based on the Gmail web app on tablets. On April 11, 2011 Google engineer Sundar Pichai
Sundar Pichai
Sundar Pichai is an Indian American computer engineer. He is currently the senior vice president of Chrome at Google Inc..-Early life:Sundar Pichai received a B.Tech from the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur and was awarded an Institute Silver Medal. He was a resident of Nehru Hall in the...
revealed that Google employees had been testing the app together with offline versions of Google Docs and Google Calendar
Google Calendar
Google Calendar is a free time-management web application offered by Google. It became available on April 13, 2006, and exited the beta stage in July 2009...
for months and that the apps would be launched in the summer of 2011.
Interface
The Gmail interface differs from other Webmail systems with its focus on search and its "conversation view" of email, grouping several replies onto a single page. Gmail's user-experience designer, Kevin Fox, intended users to feel as if they were always on one page and just changing things on that page, rather than having to navigate to other places.History
The idea for Gmail was pitched by Rajen Sheth during an interview with Google, and went on to be developed by Paul BuchheitPaul Buchheit
Paul Buchheit is an American computer programmer and entrepreneur. He was the creator and lead developer of Gmail. He developed the original prototype of Google AdSense as part of his work on Gmail. He also suggested the company's now-famous motto "Don't be evil" in a 2000 meeting on company values...
several years before it was announced to the public. Initially the email client was available for use only by Google employees internally. Google announced Gmail to the public on April 1, 2004. IMAP support was added on October 24, 2007.
Domain name history
Before its acquisition by Google, the gmail.com domain nameDomain name
A domain name is an identification string that defines a realm of administrative autonomy, authority, or control in the Internet. Domain names are formed by the rules and procedures of the Domain Name System ....
was used by a free email service offered by Garfield.com, online home of the comic strip
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....
Garfield
Garfield
Garfield is a comic strip created by Jim Davis. Published since June 19, 1978, it chronicles the life of the title character, the cat Garfield ; his owner, Jon Arbuckle; and Arbuckle's dog, Odie...
. After moving to a different domain, that service has since been discontinued.
, Gmail's canonical
CNAME record
A CNAME record or Canonical Name record is a type of resource record in the Domain Name System that specifies that the domain name is an alias of another, canonical domain name. This helps when running multiple services from a single IP address...
URI
Uniform Resource Identifier
In computing, a uniform resource identifier is a string of characters used to identify a name or a resource on the Internet. Such identification enables interaction with representations of the resource over a network using specific protocols...
changed from
Requirement for mobile phone number
When attempting to create a Gmail account from some countries, Google requires a mobile phoneMobile phone
A mobile phone is a device which can make and receive telephone calls over a radio link whilst moving around a wide geographic area. It does so by connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile network operator...
number
Telephone number
A telephone number or phone number is a sequence of digits used to call from one telephone line to another in a public switched telephone network. When telephone numbers were invented, they were short — as few as one, two or three digits — and were given orally to a switchboard operator...
that supports text messaging
Text messaging
Text messaging, or texting, refers to the exchange of brief written text messages between fixed-line phone or mobile phone and fixed or portable devices over a network...
. In other countries this is not required for sign-up, according to Google due to service limitations.
Google explains this:
In some cases, Google may allow a certain number of accounts to be created per IP address
IP address
An Internet Protocol address is a numerical label assigned to each device participating in a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication. An IP address serves two principal functions: host or network interface identification and location addressing...
without requiring a phone number. In certain countries, one can also request a voice call with a verification code as an alternative to the text message. Voice calls are only available during certain hours and will not be listed as an option outside those hours.
Gmail Paper hoax
On April Fools' DayApril Fools' Day
April Fools' Day is celebrated in different countries around the world on April 1 every year. Sometimes referred to as All Fools' Day, April 1 is not a national holiday, but is widely recognized and celebrated as a day when many people play all kinds of jokes and foolishness...
2007, Google made fun of Gmail by introducing "Gmail Paper", where a user could click a button and Gmail would purportedly mail an ad-supported paper copy email archive for free.
Gmail Custom Time hoax
On April Fools' DayApril Fools' Day
April Fools' Day is celebrated in different countries around the world on April 1 every year. Sometimes referred to as All Fools' Day, April 1 is not a national holiday, but is widely recognized and celebrated as a day when many people play all kinds of jokes and foolishness...
2008 Google introduced a fake service, "Gmail Custom Time", which would allegedly allow a user to send up to ten emails per year with forged timestamps. The hoax stated that by bending spacetime on the Google servers, the emails actually get routed through the fourth dimension
Spacetime
In physics, spacetime is any mathematical model that combines space and time into a single continuum. Spacetime is usually interpreted with space as being three-dimensional and time playing the role of a fourth dimension that is of a different sort from the spatial dimensions...
of time itself before reaching their intended recipient.
Gmail Autopilot hoax
On April Fools' DayApril Fools' Day
April Fools' Day is celebrated in different countries around the world on April 1 every year. Sometimes referred to as All Fools' Day, April 1 is not a national holiday, but is widely recognized and celebrated as a day when many people play all kinds of jokes and foolishness...
2009 Google introduced a service called Gmail Autopilot by CADIE. According to Google, the service purported to automatically read and respond to emails for the user. It appeared to work by analyzing messages for the emotions expressed in the message and either providing advice to the user or automatically responding to the message.
Gmail Motion hoax
On April Fools' DayApril Fools' Day
April Fools' Day is celebrated in different countries around the world on April 1 every year. Sometimes referred to as All Fools' Day, April 1 is not a national holiday, but is widely recognized and celebrated as a day when many people play all kinds of jokes and foolishness...
2011 Google introduced a service called Gmail Motion which allowed users to navigate emails, send and even dictate messages through the user's physical actions using webcams. For example, to send an email, the user would perform the action of licking a stamp, and posting it. After the user signed up, they would be directed to an "April Fools'" message.
Code changes
Gmail's JavaScript was rewritten in the middle of 2007 and was released to users starting on October 29, 2007. The new version had a redesigned contacts section, quick contacts box and chat popups, which were added to names in the message list as well as the contact list. The contacts application is integrated into other Google services, such as Google Docs. Users granted access to the new version were given a link at the top-right corner which read "Newer Version". As of December 2007, most new registrations in English (US) along with most pre-existing accounts are given the new interface by default when supported. There remains the option to downgrade via a link labelled "Older Version".These coding changes mean that only users of Internet Explorer 7
Internet Explorer 7
Windows Internet Explorer 7 is a web browser released by Microsoft in October 2006. Internet Explorer 7 is part of a long line of versions of Internet Explorer and was the first major update to the browser in more than 5 years...
, Firefox 2
Mozilla Firefox 2
Mozilla Firefox 2 was a version of Firefox, a web browser released on October 24, 2006 by the Mozilla Corporation.Firefox 2 uses version 1.8 of the Gecko layout engine for displaying web pages...
, Google Chrome
Google Chrome
Google Chrome is a web browser developed by Google that uses the WebKit layout engine. It was first released as a beta version for Microsoft Windows on September 2, 2008, and the public stable release was on December 11, 2008. The name is derived from the graphical user interface frame, or...
and Safari 3.0
Safari (web browser)
Safari is a web browser developed by Apple Inc. and included with the Mac OS X and iOS operating systems. First released as a public beta on January 7, 2003 on the company's Mac OS X operating system, it became Apple's default browser beginning with Mac OS X v10.3 "Panther". Safari is also the...
(or more recent versions) are officially supported by Gmail and can fully use the new code. Opera 9.5
Opera (web browser)
Opera is a web browser and Internet suite developed by Opera Software with over 200 million users worldwide. The browser handles common Internet-related tasks such as displaying web sites, sending and receiving e-mail messages, managing contacts, chatting on IRC, downloading files via BitTorrent,...
and more recent versions are not officially tested but are expected to "work with all of Gmail's features". Internet Explorer 5.5+, Netscape
Netscape
Netscape Communications is a US computer services company, best known for Netscape Navigator, its web browser. When it was an independent company, its headquarters were in Mountain View, California...
7.1+, Mozilla 1.4+, Firefox 0.8, Safari 1.3 and some other browsers will give limited functionality. Other browsers may be redirected to the basic-HTML-only version of Gmail.
During the week of January 18, 2008, Google released an update that changed the way Gmail loads JavaScript. This caused the failure of some third-party extensions.
On December 12, 2008, Gmail added support for faster PDF
Portable Document Format
Portable Document Format is an open standard for document exchange. This file format, created by Adobe Systems in 1993, is used for representing documents in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems....
viewing within the browser.
Privacy
Google automatically scans emails to add context-sensitive advertisements to them. Privacy advocates raised concerns that the plan involved scanning their personal, assumed private, emails, and that this was a security problem. Allowing email content to be read, even by a computer, raises the risk that the expectation of privacyExpectation of privacy
In United States constitutional law the expectation of privacy is a legal test which is crucial in defining the scope of the applicability of the privacy protections of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution...
in email will be reduced. Furthermore, email that non-subscribers choose to send to Gmail accounts is scanned by Gmail as well, even though those senders never agreed to Gmail's terms of service or privacy policy
Privacy policy
Privacy policy is a statement or a legal document that discloses some or all of the ways a party gathers, uses, discloses and manages a customer or client's data...
. Google can change its privacy policy unilaterally and Google is technically able to cross-reference cookies across its information-rich product line to make dossiers on individuals. However, most email systems make use of server-side content scanning in order to check for spam
E-mail spam
Email spam, also known as junk email or unsolicited bulk email , is a subset of spam that involves nearly identical messages sent to numerous recipients by email. Definitions of spam usually include the aspects that email is unsolicited and sent in bulk. One subset of UBE is UCE...
.
In 2004 privacy advocates also regard the lack of disclosed data retention and correlation policies as problematic. Google has the ability to combine information contained in a person's email messages with information from Internet searches. Google has not confirmed how long such information is kept or how it can be used. One of the concerns is that it could be of interest to law enforcement agencies. More than 30 privacy and civil liberties organizations have urged Google to suspend Gmail service until these issues are resolved.
Gmail's privacy policy used to contain the clause: "residual copies of deleted messages and accounts may take up to 60 days to be deleted from our active servers and may remain in our offline backup systems". However, this statement does not appear in Gmail's current privacy policy. Less specifically, Google have stated that they will "make reasonable efforts to remove deleted information from our systems as quickly as is practical."
Google points out that Gmail adheres to most industry-wide practices.
Google defends its position by citing their use of email-scanning to the user's benefit. Google states that Gmail refrains from displaying ads next to potentially sensitive messages such as those that mention tragedy, catastrophe, or death.
Gmail accounts of human rights activists in China were hacked in sophisticated attacks — thought to use phishing
Phishing
Phishing is a way of attempting to acquire information such as usernames, passwords, and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. Communications purporting to be from popular social web sites, auction sites, online payment processors or IT...
and exploit a vulnerability in Internet Explorer — in late 2009. Any (web mail or other) mail system which stores and retains user's email contents is an attractive target for such attacks, but Gmail is popular with security-conscious users because of its early HTTPS
Https
Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure is a combination of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol with SSL/TLS protocol to provide encrypted communication and secure identification of a network web server...
secure (encrypted) connection support, and its more-recent HTTPS-only default setting.
The launch of Google Buzz
Google Buzz
Google Buzz is a social networking, microblogging and messaging tool from Google integrated into the company's web-based email program, Gmail. Users can share links, photos, videos, status messages and comments organized in "conversations" and visible in the user's inbox. On October 14, 2011,...
as an opt-out
Opt-out
The term opt-out refers to several methods by which individuals can avoid receiving unsolicited product or service information. This ability is usually associated with direct marketing campaigns such as telemarketing, e-mail marketing, or direct mail. A list of those who have opted-out is called a...
social network
Social network
A social network is a social structure made up of individuals called "nodes", which are tied by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as friendship, kinship, common interest, financial exchange, dislike, sexual relationships, or relationships of beliefs, knowledge or prestige.Social...
immediately drew criticism for violating user privacy because it automatically allowed Gmail users' contacts to view their other contacts.
Technical limitations
Gmail does not allow users to send or receive executable files or archives containing executable files if it recognizes the file extension as one used for executable files or archives.By design, Gmail does not deliver all of a user's emails. When downloading mail through POP or IMAP access, Gmail fails to deliver messages that users have sent to themselves if the client has a copy of it already.
It also does not deliver to a user's inbox (via any access interface) those messages that users have sent to mailing list
Electronic mailing list
An electronic mailing list is a special usage of email that allows for widespread distribution of information to many Internet users. It is similar to a traditional mailing list — a list of names and addresses — as might be kept by an organization for sending publications to...
s and which they might expect to receive back via the mailing list.
Before September 29, 2010, Gmail sorted email only by conversations (threads), which can be a problem for large conversations. For example, if a user sends a query to a large group of people, all of the responses are stored in a single conversation that is impossible to break apart. There is no way to search for responses from one user without getting the entire conversation. While deletion of individual emails is possible, most operations, such as archiving and labeling, can be performed only on whole conversations. Conversations cannot be split up or combined. As a result of complaints from some users, Google made conversation view optional starting September 29, 2010.
Outages
Gmail has been unavailable on several occasions. On February 24, 2009, the Gmail service was offline for 2 hours and 30 minutes, preventing millions of users from accessing their accounts. People who rely entirely on Gmail for business purposes complained about these outages. Another outage occurred on September 1, 2009. Later that day, a Google vice president, Ben Treynor, explained that the problem, which ultimately resulted in about 100 minutes of outage, was caused by overloaded routers, triggered by a routine configuration change which added more router load than expected. Treynor wrote, "Gmail remains more than 99.9% available to all users, and we're committed to keeping events like today's notable for their rarity."In 2009, Google continued to experience outages across its network, leaving users without access to their email, calendars, and virtual files.
Key outage dates include:
- February 27/28, 2011: Gmail outage
- September 24, 2009: Gmail outage
- September 1, 2009: Gmail outage
- May 14, 2009: Google network outage
- March 9, 2009: Gmail outage
- August 7, 2008: Gmail and Google Apps outage
Twenty-four hour lockdowns
If an algorithm detects what Google calls "abnormal usage that may indicate that your account has been compromised", the account can be automatically locked down for between one minute and 24 hours, depending on the type of activity detected. Listed reasons for a lock-down include:- "Receiving, deleting, or downloading large amounts of mail via POP or IMAP in a short period of time. If you're getting the error message, 'Lockdown in Sector 4,' you should be able to access Gmail again after waiting 24 hours."
- "Sending a large number of undeliverable messages (messages that bounce back)."
- "Using file-sharing or file-storage software, browser extensions, or third party software that automatically logs in to your account."
- "Leaving multiple instances of Gmail open."
- "Browser-related issues. Please note that if you find your browser continually reloading while attempting to access your Inbox, it's probably a browser issue, and it may be necessary to clear your browser's cache and cookies."
On behalf of
Prior to July 2009, any email sent through the Gmail interface included the Gmail.com address as the "sender", even if it was sent with a custom email address as "from". For example, an email sent with an external "from" address using Gmail could be displayed to a receiving email client user as From user@gmail.com on behalf of user@OtherDomainEmailAddress.com (the display used by versions of Microsoft Outlook). By exposing the Gmail address, Google claimed that this would "help prevent mail from being marked as spam". A number of Gmail users complained that this implementation was both a privacy concern and a professionalism problem.On July 30, 2009, Gmail announced an update to resolve this issue. The updated custom 'From: feature allows users to send messages from Gmail using a custom SMTP server, instead of Gmail's. However, the issue is still present for users whose custom email address is a second Gmail account, rather than an account on a separate domain.
Awards
Gmail was ranked second in PC WorldPC World (magazine)
PC World is a global computer magazine published monthly by IDG. It offers advice on various aspects of PCs and related items, the Internet, and other personal-technology products and services...
s "100 Best Products of 2005", behind Mozilla Firefox
Mozilla Firefox
Mozilla Firefox is a free and open source web browser descended from the Mozilla Application Suite and managed by Mozilla Corporation. , Firefox is the second most widely used browser, with approximately 25% of worldwide usage share of web browsers...
. Gmail also won 'Honorable Mention' in the Bottom Line Design Awards 2005. In September 2006, Forbes magazine declared Gmail as the best webmail. In November 2006, Gmail received PC World's 4 star rating.
Gmail has drawn many favorable reviews from users for generous space quotas and unique organization.
Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
due to trademark disputes, in which cases users must use the domain googlemail.com. From that point forward, visitors originating from an IP address
IP address
An Internet Protocol address is a numerical label assigned to each device participating in a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication. An IP address serves two principal functions: host or network interface identification and location addressing...
determined to be in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
would be forwarded to googlemail.com where they could obtain an email address containing the new domain. Any German user who wants a gmail.com address must sign up for an account through a proxy
Proxy server
In computer networks, a proxy server is a server that acts as an intermediary for requests from clients seeking resources from other servers. A client connects to the proxy server, requesting some service, such as a file, connection, web page, or other resource available from a different server...
. German users who were already registered were allowed to keep their old addresses.
The domains are interchangeable so users obliged to use the googlemail.com domain are unable to select addresses already chosen by gmail.com users. Inbound emails sent to either googlemail.com or gmail.com addresses will reach the user. When registering for an online service, Google Mail users must use the googlemail.com form of their email address to ensure that any administrative emails they send to the service, such as confirmation messages, are recognized.
The German naming issue is due to a trademark dispute between Google and Daniel Giersch, who owns a German company called "G-mail" which provides the service of printing out email from senders and sending the print-out via postal mail to the intended recipients. On January 30, 2007, the EU's Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market
Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market
The Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market , or OHIM is the trademark and designs registry for the internal market of the European Union. It is based in Alicante, Spain, and its president is António Campinos.- Task :...
ruled in favor of Giersch.
Google spoofed "offering" the same service in the Gmail Paper April Fool's Day joke in 2007.
Poland
In February 2007 Google filed legal action against the owners of gmail.pl, a poet group known in full as Grupa Młodych Artystów i Literatów abbreviated GMAiL (literally, "Group of Young Artists and Writers").This lawsuit was lost and the website today remains the writers' website.
Russian Federation
A RussiaRussia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n paid mail redirect service called gmail.ru owns the "Gmail" trademark in the Russian Federation.
The gmail.ru domain name dates from January 27, 2003.
United Kingdom
On October 19, 2005, Google voluntarily converted the United KingdomUnited Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
version of Gmail to Google Mail because of a dispute with the UK company Independent International Investment Research.
Users who registered before the switch to Google Mail were able to keep their Gmail address, although the Gmail logo was replaced with a Google Mail logo. Users who signed up after the name change receive a googlemail.com address, although a reverse of either in the sent email will still deliver it to the same place.
In September 2009 Google began to change the branding of UK accounts back to Gmail following the resolution of the trademark dispute.
On May 3, 2010, Google announced that they would start to phase out the googlemail.com domain in the UK. Existing users will get the option to switch to gmail.com, while new users will be given a gmail.com address by default. This also required Android phone users to perform a factory reset (requiring a back-up to prevent data loss) to restore phone functionality.
Competition
After Gmail's initial development and launch, many existing web mail services quickly increased their storage capacity.For example, Hotmail
Hotmail
Windows Live Hotmail, formerly known as MSN Hotmail and commonly referred to simply as Hotmail, is a free web-based email service operated by Microsoft as part of its Windows Live group. It was founded by Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith and launched in July 1996 as "HoTMaiL". It was one of the first...
increased space for some users from 2 MB to 25 MB, with 250 MB after 30 days, and 2 GB for Hotmail Plus accounts. Yahoo! Mail
Yahoo! Mail
Yahoo! Mail is a web mail service provided by Yahoo!. It was inaugurated in 1997, and, according to comScore, Yahoo! Mail was the second largest web-based email service with 273.1 million users as of November 2010....
went from 4 MB to 100 MB and 2 GB for Yahoo! Mail Plus accounts. Yahoo! Mail storage then increased to 250 MB and in late April 2005 to 1 GB. Yahoo! Mail announced that it would be providing "unlimited" storage to all its users in March 2007 and began providing it in May 2007. Gawab.com was the first email provider who offered free 2 GB space for email account.
These were all seen as moves to stop existing users from switching to Gmail and to capitalize on the newly rekindled public interest in web mail services. The desire to catch up was especially noted in the case of MSN's Hotmail, which upgraded its email storage from 250 MB to the new Windows Live Hotmail which includes 5 GB of storage that grows with you (expands if necessary). In November 2006, MSN Hotmail upgraded all free accounts to 1 GB of storage.
In June 2005, AOL started providing all AIM
AOL Instant Messenger
AOL Instant Messenger is an instant messaging and presence computer program which uses the proprietary OSCAR instant messaging protocol and the TOC protocol to allow registered users to communicate in real time. It was released by AOL in May 1997...
screen names with their own email accounts with 2 GB of storage.
Google may terminate a Gmail account after nine months of inactivity. Other webmail services have different, often shorter, times for marking an account as inactive. Yahoo! Mail deactivates dormant accounts after four months.
As well as increasing storage limits following the launch of Gmail, Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail also enhanced their email interfaces. During 2005 Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail matched Gmail's attachment size of 10 MB. Following the footsteps of Gmail, Yahoo! launched the Yahoo! Mail Beta service and Microsoft launched Windows Live Hotmail, both incorporating Ajax
Ajax (programming)
Ajax is a group of interrelated web development methods used on the client-side to create asynchronous web applications...
interfaces. Google increased the maximum attachment size to 20 MB in May 2007 and to 25 MB in June 2009.