On September 29, 2015, former Google employee Sanmay Ved bought the domain name for just $12 (approx. ₹800) through Google Domains, owning it for about one minute before the transaction was canceled. The domain appeared available for purchase due to a temporary internal system glitch.

• When: September 29, 2015, around 1:20 a.m. ET, according to The Times of India.
• Price: The domain was purchased for $12.
• Outcome: Sanmay Ved alerted Google Security after gaining access to webmaster tools.
• Reward: Google initially rewarded Ved with $6,006.13, which was doubled to over $12,000 after he donated the money to the Art of Living India charity. [1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8]

The incident was a rare security oversight, not a legitimate, planned sale of the domain by Google. [3]

AI can make mistakes, so double-check responses

[1] https://www.ndtv.com/offbeat/google-domain-was-once-sold-for-just-12-to-an-indian-man-heres-what-happened-next-8135496

[2] https://www.youtube.com/shorts/APeAGBWBwac

[3] https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/technology/tech-news/meet-the-indian-who-temporarily-owned-google-com-for-rs-800-what-google-did-next-will-shock-you/articleshow/120281792.cms

[4] https://indianexpress.com/article/technology/tech-news-technology/meet-sanmay-ved-the-indian-who-owned-google-com-for-a-minute/

[5] https://www.facebook.com/WIONews/posts/google-sold-when-an-indian-man-bought-googlecom-at-12-owned-it-for-seconds-heres/1015097704062737/

[6] https://m.economictimes.com/news/new-updates/how-a-gujarati-bought-the-google-com-domain-for-less-than-rs-1000-and-got-rs-4-lakh-from-the-tech-giant/articleshow/120203134.cms

[7] https://time.com/4199940/google-domain-sanmay-ved/

[8] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/google-briefly-lost-ownership-domain-160018662.html