Sanmay Ved purchased Google.com for $12

“I can’t shake that feeling that I actually owned Google.com,”  Sanmay Ved said.

Google started selling domain names. And just a  few days ago, they happened to sell one really important domain name to a former employee, Sanmay Ved. That domain is Google.com.

The main domain of the search engine giant, whose market capitalization last year equaled almost $395 billion, was briefly bought by Sanmay Ved, who was browsing Google’s website-buying service, when he noticed that one of the world’s most visited domain was available for purchase.

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

“I used to work at Google so I keep messing around with the product. I type in Google.com and to my surprise it showed it as available,” Sanmay Ved told to Business Insider. “I thought it was some error, but I could actually complete check out.” 

Ved completed the transaction and within minutes received complete ownership of google.com. after the purchase was completed and his account was credited the $12, Ved received a couple of unusual emails pertaining to the webmaster tools aka the search console, which is unusual when purchasing new domains.

Sammay Ved wrote a detailed blog post about his experience owning Google for a brief period. In the post on LinkedIn Pulse, Ved includes proof of the transaction and of the credited amount from his card, if you’re skeptical. While Google has so far declined to comment on the circumstances which made his purchase possible, Sanmay Ved’s told CNET’s Crave blog that Google is investigating. Google’s Security Team acknowledged the incident.

“At least I can now say I’m the man who owned Google.com for a minute.”- Sanmay Ved

A similar incident occurred a few years ago when Microsoft lost one of its hotmail domains, but then Microsoft didn’t own the domain platform from where it was bought and settled with the buyer amiably to get hotmail back swiftly.