The man who owned Google.com for a minute: Sanmay Ved purchased domain for $12 before firm discovered its mistake

  • Google.com is currently the world's most visited website 
  • It is not yet known why the domain name went up for sale  
  • Google  stopped the transaction when it realised the error 

By Ellie Zolfagharifard For Dailymail.com

Published: 16:50 EST, 1 October 2015 | Updated: 09:46 EST, 2 October 2015

An ex-Google employee managed to own Google.com for a full minute before the firm realised its mistake.

Sanmay Ved was idly scrolling through domain names when he realised that Google.com was available to purchase.

Bemused, the former display specialist decided to attempt to buy the world's most visited site, convinced his efforts would be stopped immediately.

A ex-Google employee managed to own Google.com for a full minute before the firm realised its mistake. Sanmay Ved (left) was idly scrolling through domain names, when he realised that Google.com was available to purchase. Pictured on the right is his confirmation message
A ex-Google employee managed to own Google.com for a full minute before the firm realised its mistake. Sanmay Ved (left) was idly scrolling through domain names, when he realised that Google.com was available to purchase. Pictured on the right is his confirmation message

An ex-Google employee managed to own Google.com for a full minute before the firm realised its mistake. Sanmay Ved (left) was idly scrolling through domain names, when he realised that Google.com was available to purchase. Pictured on the right is his confirmation message

Writing about the experience in a LinkedIn post, Ved describes his shock when he found out his card was charged just $12 (£7.90).

'The domain actually got added to my cart as seen by the green check-box, and the domain appeared in my cart,' the Boston-based online retail expert wrote.

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 was soon flooded with messages confirming his ownership, with some containing private information that should only be known by the webmasters of Google.

Bemused, the former display specialist decided to attempt to buy the world's most visited site, convinced his efforts would be stopped immediately

Bemused, the former display specialist decided to attempt to buy the world's most visited site, convinced his efforts would be stopped immediately

Writing about the experience in a LinkedIn post , Ved said his card was charged just $12 (£7.90)

Writing about the experience in a LinkedIn post , Ved said his card was charged just $12 (£7.90)

'Additionally, I started receiving notifications, for when ownership changed in the Google Search Console for websites that are powered by Google Sites,' he said.

'Quite clearly, ownership had been granted to me. Order was successful.'

But within a minute of the transaction, Google realised its mistake and sent an order cancellation email from Google Domains.

'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. 

SHOULD HAVE GOOGLED IT FIRST: BMW OWNS ALPHABET.COM 

Google recently rebranded as Alphabet, bringing its many subsidiaries under one umbrella organisation.

But it has already run into a snag with its new name, as reports emerged car manufacturer BMW owns the domain Alphabet.com - and it has no plans to sell up.

The German car maker owns a fleet services company called Alphabet and has described its website as 'very active'.

We are not planning to sell the domain,' a BMW spokeswoman told the New York Times, and the company is looking into whether any trademark infringement has taken place.

Google's new umbrella organisation does not own the @alphabet twitter handle either, with its owner - Chris Andrikanich - tweeting: 'Well, that was an interesting way to end a Monday...' after the announcement from the search giant.

A Reuters report claims there are 103 trademarks in the US alone that use the word 'alphabet' or some variation of it.

Luckily for Google, it could do this because it owned the registration service, Google Domains.

This wasn't the case in 2003, when Microsoft forgot to renew their Hotmail UK domain which was registered with Nominet UK.

'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,' said Ved.

Google has yet to respond to DailyMail.com for comment.

Ved was soon flooded with messages confirming his ownership, with some containing private information that should only be known by the webmasters of Google

Ved was soon flooded with messages confirming his ownership, with some containing private information that should only be known by the webmasters of Google

But within a minute of the transaction, Google realised its mistake and sent an order cancellation email from Google Domains. Luckily for Google, it could do this because the registration service, Google Domains, belonged to the company

But within a minute of the transaction, Google realised its mistake and sent an order cancellation email from Google Domains. Luckily for Google, it could do this because the registration service, Google Domains, belonged to the company

 

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