Meet Indian man who became the temporary owner of Google for Rs 1000, here's how it happened

In a surprising incident in 2015, a former Google employee from Mandvi, Gujarat, named Sanmay Ved briefly became the owner of the world’s most-visited website, Google.com. The shocking part? He bought it for just USD 12 (around Rs 800).

Sanmay Ved, who was casually exploring Google Domains late at night, made this unbelievable discovery. At around 1:20 a.m. Eastern Time, he typed “google.com” into the search bar, expecting nothing unusual. But to his surprise, the system showed that the domain was available for purchase, something that should never happen with such a major website.

Usually, domains like Google.com are not up for sale. But that night, things were different. Sanmay saw the “add to cart” button next to the domain, which only appears if a domain is available. Out of curiosity, he clicked it. A green checkmark appeared, confirming it had been added to his cart. Still thinking it might be a glitch, he proceeded to check out.

“I was expecting an error,” Ved later wrote on LinkedIn, “but my credit card was charged, and I became the owner of Google.com, for a short while.”

After completing the purchase, Sanmay even gained access to Google's webmaster tools, usually only available to site owners. However, within a minute, Google realized what had happened, cancelled the transaction, and revoked his access.

Instead of ignoring the issue, Google appreciated Sanmay’s honesty and rewarded him with USD 6,006.13, a number that cleverly spells “Google” using numbers. When Sanmay chose to donate this amount to a charitable foundation that runs 404 free schools across 18 states, Google was so impressed that they doubled the reward. The schools support over 39,200 underprivileged children by providing them with free education.

Google also thanked other researchers and contributors around the world who help make its systems more secure.

This strange but true incident reminds us how even the biggest companies can make mistakes, and how honesty and good intentions can turn those mistakes into something meaningful.