Shortly after releasing it’s great Gmail service into the wild for any and all to register it seems that Google found the domain Gmail.pl taken. The polish domain name was taken by a group of Polish Poets. GMAIL stands for Grupa MÅ‚odych Artystów i Literatów (GMAiL) or Group of Young Artists and Writers.

Google has decided to seek action through Poland’s IT and telecommunications tribunal and have gmail.pl because the name is very close to gmail.com (the very famous email service). The owners of gmail.pl are not trying to make money of any potential sale of the name. They want to keep it.

I think this is a really dark day for Google. I mean one of its mottos is “Don’t Be Evil“. And when a large corperation starts to go after poets then I think the line has been crossed. Yes Google does have the right to protect its trademarks, but I feel gmail.pl is using it in legitamate way that in no way shape or form infringes on Google.

After all the name was available right up until November 2006. Gmail was in service before than and going global would have seemed logical. It could easily have dug into it’s deep pockets and registered the domain when it still was available.

Just because you were late doesn’t mean you should push around that little guys. Come on Google . . . let’s not turn into Microsoft.