He managed to successfully purchase online google.com, known by everyone as the domain name for the most popular website, and it cost him only $12! Unfortunately, the man enjoyed owning Google not for long, because then the company contacted him to say the transaction had been cancelled.

Sanmay Ved was using Google’s own new domain buying service called Google Domains late September, when he noticed that google.com was available to purchase. A former Google employee added the domain to his shopping cart and, surprisingly enough, the transaction went through.

As Sanmay Ved worked at Google in the past, he keeps “messing around with the product”. The man typed in Google.com and, to his surprise, it was shown as available. Sanmay thought it was some kind of mistake, but it turned out that he actually managed to complete check out.

The most interesting thing is that instead of receiving the usual confirmation emails from the company, Sanmay’s inbox and Google Webmaster Tools (aka Google Search Console) was updated with sensitive data intended for the original owners of google.com – the webmasters of the tech giant.

However, his ownership of the domain lasted not long. He received an email from the company, saying that his order was cancelled because someone had registered the website before he could. Sanmay Ved received a refund of the $12 that had already been charged. Nevertheless, the fact is the fact – for one minute, but he did have access to the site. He seems to be the only person in the world who can now say that he owned Google.com for a minute.

Thus far, the reason of what allowed Sanmay to buy Google’s domain remains unclear. Security experts suggest that it could have been a bug in the system or Google simply failed to renew its domain name when it expired.

The ex-Google employee confirmed that he had reported the breach to Google’s security team, who are now investigating the incident. He admits that this could been a disaster, if he took advantage of the access to the webmaster controls he had for a minute.

In respond, Google said it was indeed looking into the issue, but had not noticed anything unusual. It should be noted that this case resembles a mishap by Microsoft a dozen years ago, when it forgot to renew the well-known hotmail.co.uk domain in time. A member of the public purchased the name and immediately contacted the tech giant to arrange handing it over.