Man who purchased google.com lands reward and gives it away

Web domains can be worth big money if they are tied to popular websites. Google.com is one of the most visited websites on the internet and recently a man named Sanmay Ved from the US was able to purchase the domain Google.com. Ved is a student in the US and noticed that Google.com was for sale and was able to finish a transaction leaving him owning the domain.

He only owned the domain for about a minute before Google realized the mistake and cancelled the transaction. Google later gave Ved $10,000 for spotting the error and Ved has decided to donate the money to charity. Ved says that he had been keeping an eye on Google-related web addresses for a while since he used to work for the web firm.

Ved paid $12 to register the domain in his name and received emails that were intended for the Google web administration team. Shortly thereafter, a cancellation notice was received stating that he couldn't own the domain because someone else had registered it and he was refunded the $12 for registration.

The $10,000 payment he received from Google was part of the company's Bug Bounty program. When Google found out that Ved was donating the money to an Indian educational foundation, the search giant doubled the payout.

SOURCE: BBC