Google.com was sold for just $12.
By Dileep Thekkethil
Last October, the team managing Google Domains registration felt chills down the spine after its automated system accidentally sold the mighty “Google.com” domain name to an ex-Googler Sanmay ved for a mere $12. Sanmay who was able to own the domain for 1 minute was later offered a reward after his registration was cancelled by Google.
Since the news of the reward started doing rounds, there were many speculations about the reward amount paid by Google. Sanmay himself had said that he received close to $10,000 (Rs. 6 lakhs) from the search giant though the California-based company remained tight-lipped.
Finally, on Thursday Google announced the reward amount paid to Sanmay and many other who found bugs in the Google’s system.
During “Google Security Awards – 2015 Year in Review”, the company revealed that it paid $6006.13 (Rs. 4 Lakhs) to Sanmay who was least interesting in keeping the amount for himself, decided to dedicate the whole amount towards charity. After coming to know about Sanmay’s intention to spend the money for charity, Google doubled the amount.
Eduardo Vela Nava, Google Security executive on the company blog post wrote “You may have read about Sanmay Ved, a researcher from who was able to buy Google.com for one minute on Google Domains. Our initial financial reward to Sanmay-$ 6,006.13-spelled-out Google, numerically (squint a little and you’ll see it!). We then doubled this amount when Sanmay donated his reward to charity.”
Ved who tried his luck in trying to own the world’s most costly domain, Google.com, was momentarily successful as Google’s system failed to recognize itself and selling it off at for a petty amount of $12. Soon after it realized that the Domain Google is no more with Google, they cancelled the sale and refunded the full $12 to Ved.
According to the official blog of Google, it distributed close to $2 million to more than 300 people who figured out bugs in its system as part of the Security Reward program. The company also revealed that it gave away bounties to over 750 developers and researchers Great Britain, Poland, Germany, Romania, Israel, Brazil, United States, China, Russia, and India, among other countries for improving the security and user experience.
The post says that it paid over $6 million in awards since it started the program in 2010.
“We launched our Android VRP in June, and by the end of 2015, we had paid more than $200,000 to researchers for their work, including our largest single payment of $37,500 to an Android security researcher,” Nava added.
The blog post also details how the company benefited out of the Vulnerability Research Grants program and reaffirms its commitment in opening avenues for research, especially in areas of security. Google is planning to start a new security research for Google Drive by the end of this year.