The domain “www.google.com” is one that all of us frequent at least once every couple of hours, if not every few minutes. Google has become synonymous with surfing the web wherever you are (sorry Bing) and most of us assume that this will never change for the foreseeable future. However on Tuesday, there was something different about www.google.com. It wasn’t a new doodle. It wasn’t suddenly viewable only in Kryptonian. In fact nothing visibly changed, however in the back-end www.google.com had a new owner.
Former Googler Sanmay Ved hit the jackpot on Tuesday when he was able to purchase one of the most recognizable domain names on the Internet — Google.com — from Google Domains, not for billions or millions or even hundreds of dollars, but just $12. That’s right, for the price of lunch, Mr.Ved was able to own one of the most prominent internet domain names in the world.
Ved published a blog post on LinkedIn Pulse on Tuesday outlining the experience, showing proof that his credit card was charged the fee. He also showed that he had recieived two automated Google.com emails, which he said is further indication of his successful purchase. Ved said he has used Google Domains to purchase and register domain names in the past, however he hadn’t received emails from those addresses for those purchases.
Fortunately, or unfortunately (depending on how you look at it), Ved’s ownership of the domain was short lived; Google was able to quickly and successfully re-secure Google.com because it owns Google Domains, but it might have been a headache for the company otherwise. I assume that throughout the process there was a high level of panic at Mountain View, California.
This isn’t the first such high-profile purchase we’ve seen. Microsoft had a similar problem in 2003 when it lost the hotmail.co.uk website, though the person who bought it reached out to Microsoft and returned the domain name the same day.
Source: CNET
