Google had a close call in October when someone took it upon themselves to purchase Google.com via Google Domains. Sanmay Ved paid just $12 for the most well-known URL on the planet and had the order cancelled in just 60 seconds by the search engine giant.
Google later did send Ved an undisclosed sum for the purchase, and it was announced in a blog post by Google earlier this week.
“You may have read about Sanmay Ved, a researcher from who was able to buy google.com for one minute on Google Domains. Our initial financial reward to Sanmay—$ 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.”
The clever numeric representation of “Google” should send some laughable good will among white hat hackers and innovative cyber security researchers, especially those interested to participate in finding internet security vulnerabilities within Google software via the Vulnerability Reward Program.
As it turns out, clever internet hi-jinks can and do pay off.
Thoughts of your own? Let us know in the comments.