Google paid this much to the guy who briefly owned Google.com - CNET

Google shelled out some cash last fall after losing and regaining ownership of Google.com. Now the company has revealed how much the slip-up cost.

Former Google employee Sanmay Ved purchased Google.com for $12 at 1:20 a.m. ET on September 29. He bought the domain name on the Google Domains registration service website after the company somehow lost ownership of it.

He owned Google.com for one minute. The transaction was reversed when Google sent Ved a cancellation order, which retued ownership to the company.

Conflicts over domain ownership aren't always settled amicably or cheaply. So-called domain squatters often try to get ahead of potential, hypothetical products and register domain names -- say, "Appleflyingcar.com" -- on the cheap in hopes of netting a big sale to the company that needs the site. Or they may create a website name that combines a celebrity's name and a word like "naked."

In this case, it seems Google may have missed a deadline to renew Google.com, creating an opportunity for someone to slip in and nab it. Neither Google nor Ved has publicly revealed exactly how the domain name became available.