This man bought Google.com for one minute

Sanmay Ved bought the domain Google.com for just $12

An ex-Google employee bought the domain Google.com for one whole minute for just $12 before Google realised its mistake and stopped the transaction.

'The domain actually got added to my cart as seen by the green check-box, and the domain appeared in my cart,' Sanmay Ved wrote in a LinkedIn post.

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The Boston-based online retail expert had been surfing the internet looking for available Google domains when to his astonishment, he found that Google.com was available to be purchased.

Ved immediately decided to buy the most visited site in the world. Although he figured his efforts would be stopped immediately, he went ahead and the domain was added to his cart. Ved was only charged $12 for it.



The domain also appeared in his Google Domains order history and his Google Webmaster Tools was updated with webmaster related messages for the Google.com.

Ved soon received confirmation messages about his ownership and was also privy to some information that should only be known by the Google webmasters.



“Additionally, I started receiving notifications, for when ownership changed in the Google Search Console for websites that are powered by Google Sites. Quite clearly, ownership had been granted to me. Order was successful,” he said.

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“The scary part was I had access to the webmaster controls for a minute... At least I can now say I'm the man who owned Google.com for a minute,” he told Business Insider.

However, Google was quick to realise its mistake and within a minute of the transaction sent an order cancellation email from Google Domains. Luckily, Google could cancel the transaction because the registration service, Google Domains, is owned by the company.



Ved, like all of us, is curious as to what led Google to put its domain name up for sale. "In my case, I don't know what caused Google to lose ownership of the domain Google.com as a result of which it was available in the open market," he said.

This article originally appeared on Daily Mail