Post: #1

Man who owned Google.com for a minute reveals search giant paid him 'more than $10,000' for their mistake and doubled it when said he would donate money to charity

Quote:An ex-Google employee who managed to own Google.com for a full minute before the firm realised its mistake has revealed Google paid him for the name - and doubled the amount when he said he wanted to donate it to charity.

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.

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.

'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.

He refused to disclose the amount Google gave him, only hinting that it was at least 'more than 10,000.'

Because Ved was donating the money to charity, Google offered to double the amount that would go to The Art of Living India, an organisation which says it is 'an educational and humanitarian movement engaged in stress-management and service initiatives.'

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.

What would you have done if you were in this guys shoes? I think he's a clown, if he wanted to donate to charity he should have got more out of them.

I would have played hardball and asked for hundreds of millions (for myself, not charity) if I could get away from it. I would have gone straight to the press with this so that Google couldn't do anything about it without everybody knowing.

I would have asked Google to donate to charity in addition. They can easily afford it.

What would you guys have done if you were in his shoes?

Post: #2

Push, but don't push too hard. Charge just enough for them to avoid a lengthy legal battle.
I'd ask for $250k.

Or better yet, if there's a website I could auction the url on I'd post it there.
Sell it to some rival. Let google battle them legally.

Maybe contact Samsung, Apple, etc. and try to sell it to them.

Post: #3

He would have gotten nothing as there are trademark laws that protect obvious trademark domains. He would have been forced to hand it over. Google paid him so to look good, not so to 'get it back'.

Samsung and Apple would never have bought it for that exact reason.

That being said, Google is getting sloppy lately with ridiculously buggy software, and now this. They need to radically ramp up their quality control methods.

Post: #4

What you would have done, doesn't even sound feasible.

Blackmail Google for their domain? They own the internet..
The domain was corrected in a minute.
If I was Google I would have gave you nothing more than a pat on the back. They were probably only nice because he was a former employee.

Post: #5

They could've payed $200 and get that guy his first blowjob. Way cheaper and wouldn't have to deal with the media.

Post: #6

I would have called ICANN and forced the domain back for no money.

You can bet that a call from the CEO to the head of ICANN would have fixed this issue.

Domain squatters are the worst.

Post: #7

When I initially read this story they said they took it back almost immediately so the guy didn't sell it back to them. I had heard Google was basically giving him a reward for finding a flaw. Google does some interesting stuff with their search engine. I've heard stories of people searching for really uncommon programming terms and info and basically getting some message unlocked saying we want to talk t you about a job. Basically if your knowledgeable enough to even know those terms they are interested in you.

Post: #8

I would never give the domain back. I'm not stupid. Whatever money they give me, is always going to be less than what it's worth. The google.com is worth millions, so I would never accept $10K or $50K for it. can only get done for domain squatting if you do something to confuse users that they're on the proper domain. I would make the google.com domain a spelling website, so as it's about spelling and not technology or searching, I would be allowed the domain.

That's the same reason why it took Apple until 2013 to get the http://apple.co.uk domain. It was an illustration site before. As long as you don't trick or confuse users into thinking they're on the domain they should be looking for, or launch a competitor in the same market sector of the domain you squatted, you can keep it.

Post: #9

^ "Apple", "Windows", "Office" etc. are proper English words. You can put a pic of an apple there and write "I love apples and I am dedicating a website to the fruit" and there is no way to legally refute your intention.

"Google" on the other hand is a pure trademark (same as "Microsoft" or "Walmart") and ICANN would simply give the domain back to the Google as they are forced to do by law.

The only way to get $ from accidently grabbing google.com is to do what that dude did - give the domain back and get $10K from google so they will save face with the press.

Post: #10

Google also owns the domain he bought it from.

Anyone thinking that he had a chance in keeping Google as a domain needs to think about how Google works.