In 2015, an Indian techie named Sanmay Ved temporarily became the owner of the Google.com domain. Yes, the actual Google website! Ved, who once worked at Google, was casually browsing online one night when he saw that Google.com was available for purchase.

Sanmay Ved, who is originally belongs from Gujarat, couldn’t believe his eyes. When he looked up the domain on Google’s domain service, it showed that he could add Google.com to his shopping cart. Thinking it was a mistake, he tried to go ahead anyway, and to his surprise, the transaction was successful. He bought the domain for just $12 (around ₹815).

After the purchase, Ved even got access to some of Google’s internal tools, which confirmed that he actually owned the domain, even if just for a short time. Sharing the experience on LinkedIn, Ved said:

“I was hoping I would get an error at some time saying the transaction did not go through, but I was able to complete the purchase, and my credit card was actually charged!”

The mistake was soon noticed by Google, which acted quickly to cancel the sale and take back ownership of the domain. the world.

It’s not every day that someone buys one of the world’s most visited websites — even if only for a few minutes!

However, Google rewarded Sanmay for reporting the error with an amount of $6,006.13 (approx. Rs 4 lakh back then). 

But instead of keeping the reward for himself, Ved chose to donate the entire amount to a charitable cause. He gave the money to the Art of Living India Foundation, a non-profit organisation that offers free education to underprivileged children across India.

Impressed by his generosity, Google decided to match the donation, effectively doubling the total contribution. In a blog post quoted by the Times of India, Google said:

“Our initial financial reward to Sanmay – $6,006.13 – spelled out Google, numerically. We then doubled this amount when Sanmay donated his reward to charity.”



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