Gmail

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This article is about Google's email service. For other uses, see Gmail (disambiguation).
Gmail

A screenshot of a Gmail inbox

Developer(s) Google
Initial release March 21, 2004
Operating system Server: Linux; Client: Any Web browser
Platform Google Closure Tools (JavaScript)
Type POP3, IMAP, E-mail, Webmail
Website mail.google.com

Gmail is a free, advertising-supported webmail, POP3, and IMAP[1] service provided by Google.
[2][3]
Gmail was launched as an invitation-only beta release on April 1, 2004[4] and it became
available to the general public on February 7, 2007, though still in beta status at that time.[5] As
of December 2009,[6] it has 176 million users monthly. The service was upgraded from beta
status on July 7, 2009, along with the rest of the Google Apps suite.[7][8]

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 offered at that time. Gmail
has a search-oriented interface and a "conversation view" similar to an Internet forum. Software
developers know Gmail for its pioneering use of the Ajax programming technique.[9] Gmail runs
on Google GFE/2.0 on Linux.[10][11][12]

Contents
[hide]

 1 Features
o 1.1 Storage
o 1.2 Gmail Labs
o 1.3 Spam filter
o 1.4 Gmail Mobile
o 1.5 Gmail on iPad
o 1.6 Google Buzz
 2 Interface
 3 History
 4 Domain name history
 5 Requirement for mobile phone number
 6 Gmail hoaxes
o 6.1 Gmail Paper hoax
o 6.2 Gmail Custom Time hoax
o 6.3 Gmail Autopilot hoax
 7 Code changes
 8 Criticisms
o 8.1 Privacy
o 8.2 Technical limitations
o 8.3 Outages
o 8.4 Twenty-four hour lockdowns
o 8.5 On behalf of
o 8.6 Disabling accounts
 9 Reception
o 9.1 Awards
 10 googlemail.com domain for certain countries
 11 Trademark disputes
o 11.1 Germany
o 11.2 Poland
o 11.3 Russian Federation
o 11.4 United Kingdom
 12 Competition
 13 See also
o 13.1 Third party software
 14 References
 15 External links

[edit] Features
[edit] Storage

Gmail's log-in page (July 2009)

The Gmail service currently provides more than 7450 MB of free storage.[13] Users can rent
additional storage (shared between Picasa Web Albums, Google Docs and Gmail) from 20 GB
(US$5/year) to 16 TB (US$4096/year).[14][15][16][17]

On April 1, 2005 the first anniversary of Gmail, Google announced the increase from 1 GB,
stating that Google would "keep giving people more space forever."[18]

In April 2005 Gmail engineer Rob Siemborski stated that Google would keep increasing storage
by the second as long as it had enough space on its servers.

[edit] 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 e-mail messages, custom keyboard-
shortcuts 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.

On December 10, 2008 Gmail added support for SMS Messaging through its integrated Chat.[19]
[20][21]

On January 28, 2009 Gmail added support for offline access through its integration with Gears.
[22]

On July 14, 2009 Gmail brought Tasks out of Labs testing and made it an official feature.[23]

[edit] Spam filter

Gmail's spam filtering features a community-driven system: when any user marks an email as
spam, this provides information to help the system identify similar future messages for all Gmail
users.[24] Users may tune the system to allow mail marked as spam to be handled in particular
ways.[25]
[edit] 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 smartphones. Gmail Mobile
was released on December 16, 2005 and is available in many different languages. Gmail Mobile
offers many of the features as Gmail delivered effectively to smaller, mobile screens. Users have
the ability to compose, read, reply, forward, mark unread, add a star or trash email messages.
[citation needed]

On September 22, 2009 Google brought Push Mail support to its Gmail service using Google
Sync for iPhone and iPod Touch platforms.[26]

Screenshot of Gmail Mobile

In order to use the service a user will need a Gmail account and a mobile device that meets the
following requirements:

 It must have Internet access and a WAP enabled web browser

 It must be XHTML compliant
 It must have cookies enabled and the mobile network must also allow cookies to be set
 It must allow SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) traffic.[27]

Gmail Mobile was released on December 16, 2005 and is available in many different languages.
[28]

[edit] Gmail on iPad

On April 3, 2010, Google announced a new two-pane layout designed specifically for the iPad. 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.[29] This
feature is hidden from other browsers.

[edit] Google Buzz

Main article: 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.[30]

[edit] Interface
Main article: Gmail 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.[31]

[edit] History
Main article: History of Gmail

Gmail was a project started by Google developer Paul Buchheit several years before it was
announced to the public. Initially the e-mail client was available for use only by Google
employees internally within the company. Google announced Gmail to the public on April 1,
2004.[32] IMAP support was added on October 24, 2007.[1]

[edit] Domain name history

Before its acquisition by Google, the gmail.com domain name was used by a free e-mail service
offered by Garfield.com, online home of the comic strip Garfield. After moving to a different
domain, that service has since been discontinued.[33]

As of 22 June 2005, Gmail's canonical URI changed from http://gmail.google.com/gmail/ to

http://mail.google.com/mail/.[34] As of July 2010, those who typed in the former URI were
redirected to the latter.

[edit] Requirement for mobile phone number

When attempting to create a Gmail account from some countries, Google requires a mobile
phone number that supports text messaging. In other countries this is not required for sign-up,
according to Google due to service limitations.[35]

Google explains this:

If you'd like to sign up for a Gmail address, you need to have a mobile phone that has
“ text-messaging capabilities. ”
If you don't have a phone, you may want to ask a friend if you can use his or her
 number to receive a code.

One of the reasons we're offering this new way to sign up for Gmail is to help protect
our users and combat abuse. Spam and abuse protection are two things we take very
seriously, and our users have been very happy with the small amount of spam they've
received in Gmail. We take many measures to ensure that spammers have a difficult
time sending their spam messages, getting these messages delivered, or even
obtaining a Gmail address (spammers will often use many different addresses to send
spam). Sending invitation codes to mobile phones is one way to address this, as the
number of addresses created per phone number can be limited.[35]

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.[citation needed]

[edit] Gmail hoaxes

See also: Google's hoaxes

[edit] Gmail Paper hoax

On April Fools' Day 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 hard copy for free.
[36]

[edit] Gmail Custom Time hoax

On April Fools' Day 2008 Google introduced a fake service, "Gmail Custom Time", which
would allegedly allow a user to send up to ten e-mails per year with forged timestamps. The hoax
stated that by bending spacetime on the Google servers, the e-mails actually get routed through
the fourth dimension of time itself before reaching their intended recipient.[37][38]

[edit] Gmail Autopilot hoax

On April Fools' Day 2009 Google introduced a service called Gmail Autopilot by CADIE.[39]
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.

[edit] Code changes

Gmail's JavaScript front-end was rewritten in late summer and early fall 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".[40][41][42][43]

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.[42][44][45][46][47]

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.[48]

On December 12, 2008 Gmail added support for faster PDF viewing within the browser.[49]

[edit] Criticisms
[edit] Privacy

Google automatically scans e-mails to add context-sensitive advertisements to them. Privacy

advocates raised concerns that the plan involved scanning their personal, assumed private, e-
mails, and that this was a security problem. Allowing e-mail content to be read, even by a
computer, raises the risk that the expectation of privacy in e-mail will be reduced. Furthermore,
e-mail 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 e-mail
systems make use of server-side content scanning in order to check for spam.[50][51]

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 e-mail
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.[52]

Gmail's privacy policy contains 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". Google points out that Gmail adheres to most industry-wide practices. Google
has stated that they will "make reasonable efforts to remove deleted information from our
systems as quickly as is practical."[53][54]

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.[55]

Gmail accounts of human rights activists in China were hacked in a sophisticated attack in late
2009.[56][57] The fact that Gmail stores, analyzes and retains user's email contents makes Gmail an
attractive target for such attacks.[58]

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.[59][60]

[edit] Technical limitations

Gmail does not allow users to send or receive executable files or archives containing executable
files if it recognises the file extension as one used for executable files or archives.[61][62]

By design, Gmail does not deliver all of a user's e-mails. 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.[63] It also does not deliver to a user's inbox (via any access interface)
those messages that users have sent to mailing lists and which they might expect to receive back
via the mailing list.[64]

Gmail sorts e-mail 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 e-mails is possible, most operations, such as archiving and labeling, can be performed
only on whole conversations. Conversations cannot be split up or combined.[65]

[edit] 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.[66][67]
Another outage occurred on September 1, 2009. The problem was widely reported by users on
Twitter, and Google acknowledged that the problem affects "a majority of users" and promised
an update on the situation by 1:53:00PM PDT which would include a time estimate on when they
expect to have the problem fixed.[68][69][70] An update at 1:02PM PDT stated that the problem was
still being investigated and promised another update by 2:16:00 PM PDT. According to an
Official Gmail Blog post, IMAP and POP3 access was unaffected.[71] 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."[72][73]

In 2009, Google continued to experience outages across its network, leaving users without access
to their email, calendars, and virtual files.[74]

Key outage dates include:[74]

 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

[edit] 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:
[75]

 "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."[75]
 "Sending a large number of undeliverable messages (messages that bounce back)."[75]
 "Using file-sharing or file-storage software, browser extensions, or third party software
that automatically logs in to your account."[75]
 "Leaving multiple instances of Gmail open."[75]
 "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."[75]

[edit] 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 e-mail client
user as From [email protected] on behalf of [email protected] (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".[76] A number of Gmail users
complained that this implementation was both a privacy concern and a professionalism problem.
[77]
On July 30, 2009, Gmail announced an update to resolve this issue.[78] The updated custom
'From:' feature allows users to send messages from Gmail using a custom SMTP server, instead
of Gmail's.[79] 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.[80]

[edit] Disabling accounts

Google's terms of service allow it to disable customer accounts at any time without warning.
Google provides a page for users to complain if an account has been disabled in error, but
although some users are able to get their accounts back, for others it often generates no response,
and users have no other way to get their accounts returned to them.[81][82][83][84]

[edit] Reception
[edit] Awards

Gmail was ranked second in PC World's "100 Best Products of 2005", behind Mozilla Firefox.
Gmail also won 'Honorable Mention' in the Bottom Line Design Awards 2005.[85][86]

Gmail has drawn many favorable reviews from users for generous space quotas and unique
organization.[87]

[edit] googlemail.com domain for certain countries

The domain gmail.com is unavailable in Germany due to trademark disputes, in which cases
users must use the domain googlemail.com.

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 e-mails 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 UK was also covered by this restriction, but Google announced on May 3, 2010 that the
restriction would be lifted.[88]

[edit] Trademark disputes

[edit] Germany
The Google Mail logo

On July 4, 2005 Google announced that Gmail Deutschland would be rebranded as Google Mail.
[citation needed]
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 e-mail address
containing the new domain.[citation needed] 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.[citation needed]However e-mails sent to [email protected] still reach the
right recipient.

The German naming issue is due to a trademark dispute between Google and Daniel Giersch.
Daniel Giersch owns a company called "G-mail" which provides the service of printing out e-
mail 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.[89]

Google spoofed "offering" the same service in the Gmail Paper April Fool's Day joke in 2007.[90]

[edit] 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").[91] This lawsuit was lost and the website today remains the writers' website.
[citation needed]

[edit] Russian Federation

A Russian paid mail redirect service called gmail.ru owns the "Gmail" trademark in the
Russian Federation.[92]

The gmail.ru domain name dates from January 27, 2003.[93]

[edit] United Kingdom

On October 19, 2005 Google voluntarily converted the United Kingdom version of Gmail to
Google Mail because of a dispute with the UK company, Independent International Investment
Research.[94][95]

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.[96]
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.[88] This also required Android phone users to
perform a factory reset (with ensuing data loss) to restore phone functionality.[97]

[edit] Competition
See also: Comparison of webmail providers

After Gmail's initial development and launch, many existing web mail services quickly increased
their storage capacity.[98]

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.[99]

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 e-mail storage from 250 MB to the new
Windows Live Hotmail which includes 5 GB of storage. As of November 2006, MSN Hotmail
upgraded all free accounts to 1 GB of storage.[100]

In June 2005 AOL started providing all AIM screen names with their own e-mail accounts with 2
GB of storage.[101]

The Gmail system flags as dormant every Gmail account which remains inactive for six months.
After a further three months, for a total of nine months dormancy, the system may delete such
accounts.[102] Other Webmail services have different, often shorter, times for marking an account
as inactive. Yahoo! Mail deactivates dormant accounts after four months, while Hotmail matches
Gmail's nine months.[103][104]

As well as increasing storage limits following the launch of Gmail, Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail
also enhanced their e-mail 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