Google paid huge sum for its domain name back after ex-employee bought Google.com for $12 due to glitch

Did you know that Google paid a huge sum for its domain name back after an ex-employee bought Google.com for $12 due to glitch?

It sounds like the plot of a Silicon Valley sitcom, that for a short and slightly chaotic moment, one of the most valuable web addresses on Earth was sitting in someone’s digital shopping cart.

The wild part is that the someone in question used to work at Google.

And the whole thing happened because of a technical glitch that briefly made Google.com look like it was up for grabs.

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Google paid a huge sum for its domain name back

In a chaotic tech story time, back in 2015, a former Google employee Sanmay Ved, was browsing Google domains when he noticed something unbelievable.

Google.com, the actual Google.com, appeared to be available to buy.

Instead of assuming it was a visual bug and moving on, he clicked through the process and added it to his cart, and shockingly, the transaction went through.

Ved paid just $12 and received confirmation that he had successfully purchased the domain.

For about a minute, he reportedly had access associated with ownership before Google’s systems reversed the sale and cancelled the transaction.

The company quickly refunded his $12, restored control of the domain, and patched the glitch that allowed it to happen in the first place.

But that was not the end of the story: rather than ignoring the incident, Google treated it as a security discovery and decided to reward him for responsibly reporting the flaw.

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He bought Google.com for just $12

Through its Vulnerability Reward Program, Google initially paid Ved $6,006.13, a playful figure that subtly nods to the company’s name.

When Google learned that the ex-employee planned to donate the reward to charity, the tech company doubled the amount.

That brought the total payout to $12,012.26, a massive leap from the original $12 checkout price.

The ex-employee directed the funds to a foundation that supports education, turning a bizarre technical slip into something genuinely positive.

What started as a curious click on a domain listing became a reminder that even tech giants can have hiccups and that doing the right thing when you spot one can pay off in a very big way.