The man who owned 'Google.com' for a minute

folarin okunola

October 1, 2015 5:28 PM

Ved said he had been up late and searching Google Domains, Google’s website-buying service, when he discovered that Google.com was available.

Screenshot showing Ved successfully purchased the Google.com domain

An ex-Google employee, Sanmay Ved, was the lucky and proud buyer of “Google.com”, even if it was only for a minute.

According to a report by Business Insider, Ved said he had been up late and searching Google Domains, Google’s website-buying service, when he discovered that Google.com was available.

Instead of the usual gray sad face that indicates that the domain already has an owner, a green happy face showed that it was indeed available.

And the cost to purchase the most trafficked domain in the world? Just $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 said, according to Business Insider. "I thought it was some error, but I could actually complete check out."

Ved added it to his shopping cart and, to his surprise, the transaction actually went through. Instead of the usual “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.

In addition, he also received emails with internal information, which he has since reported to Google’s security team, Business Insider reports.

"The scary part was I had access to the webmaster controls for a minute," Ved said. He also said he frantically took screenshots along the way and detailed the entire incident in a LinkedIn post.

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His time as owner of the Google.com domain was short-lived though. Google Domains canceled the transaction a minute later, saying the site had been registered by someone else before he could, and refunded Ved the $12 he had already been billed.

"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."

A Google representative told Business Insider that they were looking into the issue, but aren’t noticing anything unusual at the moment.

Google is not the first tech giant to run into strange domain problems. Back in 2003, Microsoft failed to renew its “Hotmail.co.uk” domain, and someone else bought it. While Google was lucky that its own domain was bought from Google itself, Microsoft had to ask the buyer to return it to them.

Watch this Google video below.

folarin okunola