Poetic License, or Not?

Google has launched legal action against a group of Polish poets, demanding that they give up their Internet domain name gmail.pl.

Izabela Krawczyk of GMAiL -- the "Grupa Mlodych Artystow i Literatow," or Group of Young Artists and Writers -- told AFP (the French News Angency) that Google had turned to the country's IT and telecommunications tribunal to try to stop them using the Web site address www.gmail.pl.

Google charges that GMAiL has no rights to the name, which resembles the US firm's internationally known email service www.gmail.com.

The service is enjoying snowballing global success, encouraging Google to try to snap up variants of the name which use national suffixes, such as .pl in Poland.

Besides turning to arbitrators and the courts to stop so-called cybersquatters from abusing their names on the Internet, companies sometimes pay big money to buy back such domain names.

Krawczyk, however, blasted the suggestion that the poets were looking for a fast buck.

"We didn't buy this name just to sell it to Google. As a matter of pride, we're refusing to give it up," she said.

"We bought the name legally, with our own money. Nobody gave it to us for free. We refuse to be deprived of what we consider is our property."

[Story from Yahoo News]