EU Forbids "GMail" in Europe

Tanja Stumberger

The Trademark Agency of the European Union denied Google's bid for the right to use within the EU the name of its popular e-mail program, “Gmail.”

There is a German company, P1 Private, that offers a service that lets users send files and messages through a central e-mail system called “G-Mail.” The EU claims its aim is to protect the Europeans from a "likelihood of confusion," as the common element "Gmail" is so similar that people "will be misled into thinking that the marks indicate a shared commercial origin." Therefore, Gmail is not allowed to enter the market, with the additional argument based in the “first come, first serve” principle. German businessman Daniel Giersch trademarked a slogan "G-mail ... und die Post geht richtig ab" that includes the word G-mail in 2000; Google created G(oogle)mail in 2004.

First, is this decision really protecting Europeans? Do they even want to be protected (from a choice!) in this case? Second, having a specific word in your trademarked slogan should not prevent another individual/company to trademark a slogan with that word (with or without a hyphen in it).

It can never be harmful to have more options available on the market. In this case, an individual is able to pick what she or he prefers and brush aside what she or he does not. In the situation as it is, the public is denied choices and provided with only those the government decides should be available. Thus, individuals lose the ability to settle a dispute by making decisions for themselves. The state, then, is acting as a benevolent guardian to protect (read, prevent) capable adults from making rational decisions on their own behalf.

Such presumptive action distorts the market, robs the consumer of the ability to make preferential decisions and, consequently, prevents businesses from receiving market signals that trigger innovation and efficiency. Corollary prices, revenues, and losses are based on artificial conditions instead of consumers' preferences and their choices on the market. Hence, the free market becomes buried in bureaucratic nonsense.

Instead of making the lives of their citizens better by opening markets, EU officials have decided that individuals’ lives should be designed and based on arbitrary standards and criteria. In spite of all evidence to the contrary, Europeans seem to think it is better for bureaucrats far removed from the lives of the citizenry to make personal decisions for them. It is as if European adults long for the guidance of parents who don’t even know (or care about) them.

In an opinion piece from March 21, Michael S. Malone notes, "G-Mail, with likely a few thousand users, and Gmail, with millions, don't seem to directly compete, so what's the problem?"

Simply put, this Gmail/G-Mail decision has nothing to do with economics or markets. Rather, it is directly tied to politics and (German) rent-seeking. Moreover, it has nothing to do with so-called ‘protection of the citizens’ — instead, it bears directly on the protection of a company, P1 Private. Hence, EU favors this German company over 500 million of its own people!

Malone sums it up best: "In Europe, keeping with that age-old principle that the enemy who isn't at your feet is at your throat, they've never moved on." This so-called “principle” is preventing European citizens from spreading their wings. In fact, it has already destroyed the dream of the European Community and created an over-bureaucratic, over-institutionalized, over–regulated, and over–politicized European Union that bears fruit primarily for centralized elites and their rent-seeking friends — while infringing on the rights of all the rest.

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