This guy bought 'Google.com' from Google for one minute
Ved told Business Insider
that he was up late and searching Google Domains, Google's
website-buying service, when he noticed that Google.com was available.
Instead of a gray sad face that indicates a domain has an owner, the green happy face showed it was available.
The cost to buy the most-trafficked domain in the world? Only $12.
"I used to work at Google so I
keep messing around with the product. I type in Google.com and to my
surprise it showed it as available," Ved told Business Insider. "I
thought it was some error, but I could actually complete check out."
Ved added it to his shopping cart and, surprisingly, the transaction went through.
Instead of receiving the normal
"you bought a domain" emails from the company, his Google Search
Console dashboard, which has an overview of his other websites, was
updated with messages for the Google.com domain owner. He also received
emails with internal information, which he has since reported to
Google's security team, Ved said.
"The scary part was I had access to the webmaster controls for a minute," Ved said.
He frantically took screenshots along the way and detailed the whole ordeal in a LinkedIn post.
The messages that appeared in Sanmay Ved's Google Search Console for Google.com.
His run of Google.com
was short-lived though. Google Domains canceled the sale a minute later,
saying someone had registered the site before he could, and refunded
Ved the $12 that had already been charged.
"So for one minute I had access," Ved said. "At least I can now say I'm the man who owned Google.com for a minute."
Ved is not sure what happened to
allow him to purchase the site. It could have been a bug in Google
Domains or the company simply failed to renew its domain name when the
time came. A Google representative said they are looking into the issue,
but aren't currently noticing anything unusual.
Google's not the first to run
into weird domain problems. In 2003, Microsoft failed to renew its
"Hotmail.co.uk" web address, and someone else bought it. While in Google's case it was bought from Google itself and quickly canceled, Microsoft had to ask the buyer to return it to them.
While Ved's control over
Google.com may have been fleeting, he's still surprised that his
late-night searching led to actually buying the site. He has been a fan
of the company since he worked there for 5 1/2 years before leaving to
get his MBA. His profile picture on Facebook is just a picture of the
Google Plus logo.
"I can't shake that feeling that I actually owned Google.com," Ved said.
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