Google once forgot to renew its domain, Google.com, and somebody bought it

This was in 2015.

Sanmay Ved was browsing Google Domains one night trying to learn its interface.

He clicked the add to cart button.

He's like, “What? This shouldn't work.”

Curious, he went through the full checkout process.

Then he got the message, “Transaction of $12 posted to your account,” and many more similar ones.

He got emails saying he was the owner of it.

He was freaking out.

The market cap of Google at the time was $447 billion and he just bought its domain for $12.

And you can guess what happened next.

He gets this message saying the order was cancelled.

“Google has reverted the purchase,” acknowledged it, refunded him of course, and were nice enough to offer him a reward.

That reward was kept secret for a good minute.

Until The Verge revealed it: Google gave a reward of $6,006.13.

And if you squint real hard, this spells out Google.

#seo #technews #digitalmarketing

[thedepression]

Kinda scary how Google can just go "No you don't own this" casually.

[samas]

It absolutely spells boobie. The person who gave him the compensation knew what they were about.

[Snootch]

Ah yes, clear evidence of google violating a sales contract.

[camdenone]

they must have pulled every rule out of the book to get that domain purchase canceled.

[brianvinzant]

It was a google employee... left that part out didnt ya

[Sreekar]

Using ChatGPT as a data source is wild

[rengoku]

I'm pretty sure it was a google employee and he was rewarded because google pays its employees when they find a big flaw so he owned it for 1 min and reported it and got rewarded and he also gave the money to charity so they gave him double the amount.

[festv]

they give $6, 006.13 checks for bug bounties too. iirc, i’ve also seen them write checks for $1, 337

[PilotSinOFF]

They paid him double because they had actually found out he donated that money to charity.

Ayo what in the fuck is 10k likes doing here


Brooo, 15, 000 likes on a comment when I can't even get 100 subs. Lmao

[MainAcc]

Bro is getting facts from the Hallucination Machine

[Chris-zues]

i would sue them. they cans just steal his domain

[T.C.M.Y.T]

Great short. Gave all the info and was fun to watch.

[woodhousii]

600613 sitting there being a classroom joke - "if you squint real hard, it spells out google"

S...sure, I guess

[milnertechnologies]

He wasn't just some guy he worked for Google

[ILoveYou-rvpd]

He made $6k and has an awesome story to tell for the rest of his life. I’d call that a win.

[TechyTechz]

“Six thousand dollars, six dollars, and thirteen cents”

[Instantur]

Honestly cool that they gave him something instead of just giving his money back

[Vintagium]

He actually proceeded to donate the money to charity, in which they gave him even more money.

[obelisk]

they would have paid him 9009.13 if this wasnt fake

[orealz]

Look at me, look at me...

I am Google now.