An administration oversight allowed US student Sanmay Ved to buy the right to control Google’s domain on 29 September. The oversight left him in charge of Google.com for about a minute until Google caught on and cancelled the transaction. When he bought the domain for £12, he received email confirmation and almost instantly began receiving emails which were intended for Google’s web admin staff.
Now Mr Ved has been given a cash reward for spotting the error, which he has decided to donate to charity. When Google got word of this, they doubled the reward.
Mr Ved detailed his experience in a post on the LinkedIn site saying that he had been keeping an eye on Google-related web domains for some time because he used to work at the search giant. Mr Ved is currently an MBA student at a US college.
In the early hours of 29 September he noticed a for sale sign next to the Google.com name while browsing sites on Google’s own website-buying service.
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