Users in the UK will soon be able to change their @googlemail.com email addresses to the shorter @gmail.com suffix thanks to the settlement of a patent dispute.
Google provides 176 million users monthly with the online email service worldwide. However, a five year long patent dispute with Independent International Investment Research in the UK stopped users on these shores from having the classic @gmail.com suffix.
Today Google announced a new settlement with the company, allowing for the ban to be lifted and a choice to be given to current users of either sticking with what they have or converting to @gmail.com. All new users will automatically be given the latter.
"Since "gmail" is 50 per cent fewer characters than "googlemail," we estimate this name change will save approximately 60 million keystrokes a day," claimed Greg Bullock, a software engineer at Google, on the official Gmail blog.
"At about 217 microjoules per keystroke, that's about the energy of 20 bonbons saved every day," he added.
No details have been revealed about the settlement the two firms reached, but Google has claimed the case had been "happily resolved."
