Sanmay Ved, aka "the man who owned Google.com for a few minutes" got a reward from the global tech giant.
In a stroke of luck, Sanmay Ved purchased Google.com for the ridiculous sum of $12 per year. The domain name of most accessed search engine in the world was his for a couple of minutes, until Google realized the mishap and cancelled the accidental sale.
"Google could do this given the registration service used by me (aka Google Domains) belonged to Google," Ved said.
He mentioned that a similar case happened to Microsoft in 2003, when the Windows OS developer forgot to renew their Hotmail UK domain. This led to the return of the Hotmail UK domain to the open market, where anyone could buy it, and did.
"In my case, I don't know what caused Google to lose ownership of the domain Google.com," Ved explained.
Google Security Team received a report from Ved, who speculates that a bug caused the the accidental sell of the domain. Google has a history of rewarding people for pointing out flaws in the security of its services, but Ved surprised everyone and declined the monetary gain.
"I don't care about the money," Ved declared.
"I also want to set an example that it's people who want to find bugs that it's not always about the money," he noted.
He asked the technology company to redirect his reward towards a charity organization, The Art of Living India. The organization focuses on educating young people from India that come from poor backgrounds. The educational program extends to 404 free schools in 18 states of India, benefiting as much as 39,200 children.
"The schools nurture the complete child, including body, mind and spirit," Ved's Facebook page reads
When he announced his charitable intentions, Google responded in honor and doubled the sum. Ved was asked to put a counter on the full sum but he protected Google's privacy and simply said that it was "more than ten thousand."
An analytics website places Google.com on the first place in a most visited sites chart. The popular search engine has over 180 million unique visits daily, the recording in August 2015 shows.
