The public history of Gmail dates back to 2004.

Gmail, a free, advertising-suppo rted webmail service with support for Email clients, is a product from Google. O ver its history, the Gmail interface has become integrated with many other produ cts and services from the company, with basic integration as part of Google Acco unt and specific integration points with services such as Google Calendar, Googl e Talk, and Google Buzz. It has also been made available as part of Google Apps. Contents 1 Internal development 2 Extended beta phase 3 Name change in Europe 3.1 United Kingdom 4 See also 5 References 6 External links Internal development Gmail was a project started by Google developer Paul Buchheit, who had already e xplored the idea of web-based email in the 1990s, before the launch of Hotmail, while working on a personal email software project as a college student.[1] At G oogle, Buchheit first worked on Google Groups and when asked "to build some type of email or personalization product", he created the first version of Gmail wit hin one day, reusing code from Google Groups.[1] Initially the software was avai lable only internally as an email system for Google employees.[2] Buchheit recal led that the high volume of internal email at Google created "a very big need fo r search".[1] According to Google, the software had already been developed and u sed internally for "a number of years" when it was released to the public in 200 4.[2] Extended beta phase Gmail began what ended up being a five-year beta phase in March 2004, when Googl e invited about 1,000 opinion leaders and then allowed them to invite their frie nds, and family members to become beta testers, with trials beginning on 21 Marc h 2004.[3] Gmail was made available to the public by Google on 1 April 2004, after extensiv e rumors of its existence during testing. Owing to the April Fool's Day release, the company's press release aroused skepticism in the technology world, especia lly since Google had been known to make April Fool's jokes in the past, such as PigeonRank. However, they explained that their real joke had been a press releas e saying that they would take offshoring to the extreme by putting employees in a "Google Copernicus Center" on the Moon. Jonathan Rosenberg, Google's vice-pres ident of products, was quoted by BBC News as saying, "We are very serious about Gmail."[4][5][6][7] Active users from the Blogger.com community were offered the chance to participa te in the beta-testing on 20 April and later, Gmail members occasionally receive d "invites" which they could extend to their friends. One round of invitations w as sent out on 1 May and another three invitations were given to all active memb ers on 1 June. When Gmail increased the supply of invitations, the buying and se lling market for Gmail invites collapsed.[8] During the early months of the initial beta phase, Gmail's well-publicized featu re set and the exclusive nature of the accounts caused the aftermarket price of Gmail invitations to skyrocket. According to PC World magazine, Gmail invitation s were selling on eBay for as much as US$150, with some specific accounts being sold for several thousand dollars. After a new round of invitations in early Jun e, the price for invitations fell down to between US$2 $5. Several philanthropic G

mail users have utilized services such as the now defunct GmailSwap to donate in vitations to people who want them. On 28 June 2004, Google amended its policy to forbid the selling of registered accounts.[9] In January 2005, Security experts discovered a critical flaw in the handling of Gmail messages that would allow hackers to easily access private e-mails from an y Gmail user's account. This was posted with detailed information to popular tec hnology site Slashdot at 9:23 a.m. PST on 12 January 2005. On 13 January 2005, d evelopers at Gmail announced that they had fixed the problem and that the securi ty flaw had been patched. Despite Gmail's status as a beta application, concerns were raised among some users who were using Gmail as their primary mail account .[10] On 1 April 2005, Exactly one year after the initial release, Gmail increas ed the mailbox size to 2 GB, advertising it as 2GB plus and introduced some othe r new features, including formatted editing which gave users the option of sendi ng messages in HTML or plain text. On 7 June 2005, The Gmail Invitation Spooler was deactivated by the site owner, following a direct request from the Gmail product manager to shut it down. The s ervice was featured in Popular Science magazine and had given out over 1.2 milli on Gmail accounts.[11] As of 22 June 2005, Gmail's canonical URI changed from http://gmail.google.com/g mail/ to http://mail.google.com/mail/.[12] As of November 2010, those who typed in the former URI were redirected to the latter. On 2 November 2006, Google began offering a mobile-application based version of its Gmail product for mobile phones capable of running Java applications. In add ition, Sprint announced separately that it would make the application available from its Vision and Power Vision homepages, preloaded onto some new Sprint phone s. The application gives Gmail its own custom menu system and the site displays attachments, such as photos and documents in the application.[13][14] On 28 January 2007, Google Docs & Spreadsheets was integrated with Gmail, provid ing the capability to open attached Microsoft Word DOC files directly from Gmail .[15] On 24 October 2007, Google announced that IMAP was available for all accou nts, including Google Apps for your Domain.[16] On 8 December 2008, Google added a to-do list to Gmail. When the new Tasks feature is enabled, a box shows up on top of the Gmail window. In it, users can add, reorder and delete tasks. It is also possible to assign a due date to each action and even convert e-mails into tasks.[17] On 24 February 2009, Gmail suffered a two and a half hour outage, aff ecting 100 million accounts.[18] On 7 July 2009, Gmail completed its beta status in a move to attract more business use of the service.[19][20] On 1 Sept 2009, Gmail service was interrupted for several hours.[21]