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This Guy Owned “Google.com” for 1 Minute. Here’s How Much They Paid Him For It

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Last September, Sanmay Ved was scrolling through a list of available website domains when he saw one that made him stop and do a double-take: google.com.

Ved — an MBA student who actually used to work for Google — was sure that it was some kind of mistake. Still, at a price of just $12, he figured it was worth a shot.

To his great surprise, the transaction went through. Ved immediately started receiving messages meant for Google admins and even got a few emails containing internal data.

The scary part was I had access to the webmaster controls for a minute,” he said in an interview with Business Insider.

google domain purchase

Ved documented the episode in a post on his LinkedIn account. Click to enlarge (Courtesy of Sanmay Ved)

His reign as webmaster was short-lived, however. A minute after Ved made the purchase, Google Domains canceled his transaction, saying that someone else had already registered the domain.

Ved reported the issue to Google’s security team, who rewarded him with a check for exposing the flaw. At the time, Google chose not to disclose how much the reward was worth, but a recent post on the company’s security blog has now revealed the amount: $6,006.13.

Why this amount? Because it sort of looks like the word Google. “Squint a little and you’ll see it!” the company said in its blog post.

After Google found out that Ved planned to donate the reward to charity, they decided to double the amount, bringing the total to just over $12,000.

[h/t WTVR]


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