To my surprise, Google.com was showing as available!
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The former ad sales lead for Australia and New Zealand had apparently gone on a bored, domain-watching binge and noticed, surprisingly, that Google.com had become available.
Ved wrote that he sent an entire account of what happened (including several screenshots) to Google security, which acknowledged the error to him. Ved reaction was “I can’t shake that feeling that I actually owned Google.com”. On a whim, he says he entered “Google.com” into the search box and lo-and-behold it showed up as “available”, and he was able to purchase the domain for a mere $12. “I thought it was a few error, but I could actually complete check out”. Around a minute later, he received an order cancellation email from Google Domains.
In a lengthy post on Linkedin, Sanmay Ved details how he ended up buying one of the most important domains in the world, and how he lost it all just a minute later. A few emails contained sensitive information that should only be known by the owner of Google.
However, soon after his venture into Google.com ownership began it came to a close. Would have been totally worth it for the bragging rights (“Oh yeah, I used to own google.com”) even without the refund … Not believing his purchase would actually succeed, Ved went through with the payment. It’s possible that Google didn’t automatically renew its domain, but it seems more likely that a bug in the system let Ved register the domain. A Google spokesperson told me the company is investigating the issue and isn’t noticing anything out of the ordinary.
This isn’t the first time Google has faced such domain-related problem. As a result, hotmail.co.uk was returned to the open market for pickup by anybody who fancied it. Somebody did pick it up, and Microsoft wasn’t able to cancel the order, and take it back automatically.
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Ved is now an MBA student at Babson College, outside of Boston, but he previously worked for Google from 2007-2012 according to his LinkedIn profile.
