Sometimes, for a blissful moment, the heavens open up and grant you a view of what it’s like to be an immortal being that laughs down upon all the commoners like a six-year-old eyeing ants through a magnifying glass. According to The Daily Dot, that’s essentially what happened to Sanmay Ved, a man who bought arguably the most important web domain in the world for $12 and owned it for all of a minute.
In a detailed post on LinkedIn, Ved explained that he was playing around with Google’s own domain search tool when to his surprise, entering “Google.com” presented him with an offer to buy the domain at a bargain $12 per year. As pretty much anyone would do in his place just for the fun of it, he attempted the transaction, fully believing it wouldn’t go through. And lo, did the dark clouds ever part for a brief moment to give him a glimpse of the everlasting light! He promptly received an email granting him webmaster notifications related to his purchase, confirming that he, at that moment, was the owner of Google.com.
Unfortunately, just as quickly as the heavens giveth, they taketh away. Ved didn’t even get a chance to soak in the glory before getting another email informing him that the transaction had been retroactively canceled. It even falsely claimed that his card had not been charged despite his records clearly displaying the opposite.
Ved’s post is pretty lighthearted throughout, although commenters were quick to point out that Google seemed to abuse its power by canceling a confirmed purchase. In chess, a.k.a. the metaphor for all things in life, this is the equivalent of Google lifting its hand off a move that just opened up a path to Ved declaring checkmate, then taking it back. For shame, Google. What’s done is done.