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

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.

Google has yet to respond to DailyMail.com for comment.