Man Bought Google…But for 1 Minute!

Sanmay Ved is an Ex-Googler and was in fact a lucky purchaser of the famous world wide Google.com. However, it was only for a minute.

The famous website Google Domains allows you to search for domain names and even register new ones for your company. When you type in a domain name, google.com, you will see two boxes which allows you to view the status of the domain name entered.
The first box you will see (see image below), informs you if that specific domain is available as well as other domains affiliated with the company. This is in the form of a grey sad face, indicates that the domain name is already taken, while the green smiley face indicates the domain name is free for purchasing.

The second box that you will see is directly below it (see image below). This box contains any other related domains that are available for purchase.

Domain name prices typically have a range from $.99 all the way to $100+. The price when purchasing a domain name comes from what type of domain you are purchasing. Is this an established company with residual income, or are you starting your own company? There are a few factors in which determines this price.
However, in the case of Ved purchasing Google for only $12, is a case in which I am scratching my head about.

Ved was awake late one night and just browsing through some Google Domains, as this is a website purchasing Googles services, and noticed that Google.com was free for purchase. Ved was extremely excited about the domain available for purchase and bought Google.com for only $12.

What came with his purchase is even more extraordinary.

After adding the domain name to his shopping cart and the transactions where successful, Ved received an email shortly not only congrulating him on his new purchase but even had received emails from the company Google.

When our friend Ved completed the purchase, he also was sent the information to log into have the entire webmaster controls. Naturally, Ved took screen shots of his screen while in the main page and a few others. After taking some screen shots, Ved then shared his information and images to Google’s security team.

While his story is short lived, he canceled the sale shortly after and the Google Domains refunded him his money back. Confused as to why he was able to purchase the domain name, the only thing that is making since is Google simply forgot to renew their domain name when it was due.

Another surprising aspect to this article, Google is not the only company to have their domain names purchased by someone.
In fact, in 2003, a person purchased Microsofts’ domain Hotmail.co.uk. The person also was able to purchase this domain from Google Domains. Microsoft then had to request the purchaser to give back the domain name.

Ved did work for Google for just over 5 years, and has always been a huge fan of Google and their services and has even set his Facebook profile image to the Google+ logo. Veds’ dedication to Google finally paid off and he was in all the glory he could ask for…but only for 1 minute.