Google's security bounty programs can be quite lucrative for those who discover problems, and the company has just published a report looking back at the security landscape in 2015. Entitled Google Security Rewards - 2015 Year in Review, the report reveals the financial rewards that have been paid out in the last 12 months. 
 
 In all, Google has paid out more than $2 million to more than 300 people, but Sanmay Ved is probably one of the more interesting reward recipients. He's the guy who -- very briefly -- managed to buy Google.com before having it taken off his hands. Google offered him a $6,006.13 reward, but there's a little more to the story. 
 
 If you're wondering about the slightly strange amount, Google explains that if you squint and use a little imagination, the figure spells out the word Google. Sanmay decided to donate his reward to charity, and when Google learned about this, the reward was doubled. While Sanmay may have been one of the more unusual reward recipients, Tomasz Bojarski got the crown for the most prolific, discovering no fewer than 70 bugs on Google. 
 
 2015 was the year that Android was added to the to the Security Reward program initiative resulting in payments of over $200,000 to researchers. Google shares a graphic that shows some of the highlights from 2015: 
 
 In 2015, Google's Vulnerability Research Grants was used to provide researchers with the funds they need to carry out their work. One example of how these funds were used includes research into a YouTube problem: 
 
 We’ve already seen positive results from this program; here’s one example. Kamil Histamullin a researcher from Kasan, Russia received a VRP grant early last year. Shortly thereafter, he found an issue in YouTube Creator Studio which would have enabled anyone to delete any video from YouTube by simply changing a parameter from the URL. After the issue was reported, our teams quickly fixed it and the researcher was rewarded $5,000 in addition to his initial research grant. Kamil detailed his findings on his personal blog in March. 
 
 Find out more about Google's reward programs over on the Google Security blog. 
 
 Photo Credit: tanuha2001 / Shutterstock.com ||||| Android Joins Security Rewards 
 
 
 
 
 
 Android was a newcomer to the Security Reward program initiative in 2015 and it made a significant and immediate impact as soon as it joined the program. 
 
 
 
 
 
 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. 
 
 
 
 
 
 New Vulnerability Research Grants Pay Off 
 
 
 
 
 
 Last year, we began to provide researchers with Vulnerability Research Grants , lump sums of money that researchers receive before starting their investigations. The purpose of these grants is to ensure that researchers are rewarded for their hard work, even if they don’t find a vulnerability. 
 
 
 
 
 
 We’ve already seen positive results from this program; here’s one example. Kamil Histamullin a researcher from Kasan, Russia received a VRP grant early last year. Shortly thereafter, he found an issue in YouTube Creator Studio which would have enabled anyone to delete any video from YouTube by simply changing a parameter from the URL. After the issue was reported, our teams quickly fixed it and the researcher was was rewarded $5,000 in addition to his initial research grant. Kamil detailed his findings on his personal blog in March. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Established Programs Continue to Grow 
 
 
 
 
 
 We continued to see important security research in our established programs in 2015. Here are just a few examples: 
 
 Tomasz Bojarski found 70 bugs on Google in 2015, and was our most prolific researcher of the year. He found a bug in our vulnerability submission form. 
 
 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. 
 
 We also injected some new energy into these existing research programs and grants. In December, we announced that we'd be dedicating one million dollars specifically for security research related to Google Drive. 
 
 
 
 
 
 We’re looking forward to continuing the Security Reward Program’s growth in 2016. Stay tuned for more exciting reward program changes throughout the year. ||||| Google 
 
 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 returned 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. 
 
 In a security blog post Thursday, the company revealed that it wanted to give Ved $6,006.13. Look at the amount as letters instead of numbers, and it comes close to spelling "google." "Squint a little and you'll see it!" Google said. 
 
 Google doubled that offer after Ved said he would donate the money to charity, both the company and Ved said, though neither specified the exact figure. 
 
 Google's payout ended up going to the Art of Living India foundation, which runs free schools for children in poverty-stricken areas of India. 
 
 Now playing: Watch this: Masters of a new domain 
 
 Ved, whose LinkedIn account describes him as an MBA candidate at Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, detailed the incident in a post there last fall. He noted that Google was able to reverse the transaction because it owned the Google Domains registration service. 
 
 Microsoft bumped into a similar issue in 2003 when it lost ownership of the Hotmail.co.uk website, The Register reported at the time. The software giant failed to cancel the transaction. However, the person who bought the domain name returned it the same day. ||||| Exclusive Microsoft was busy covering up an almighty cock-up last night after forgetting to renew its hotmail.co.uk domain name. 
 
 Despite being warned that the domain for its popular Web mail service was up for renewal, it seems Microsoft - or whoever had the task of managing its hotmail.co.uk domain - overlooked this vital piece of administration. 
 
 As a result, last month Microsoft lost its claim to the domain and it was duly returned to the open market to be picked up by whomever fancied it 
 
 Luckily, the domain was snapped up on the same day - October 23. The new owner - a good hearted soul - then proceeded immediately to contact Microsoft, inform the giant of its slip and arrange to hand back the domain. 
 
 However, Microsoft didn't want to know. Despite phone calls and emails - and being fobbed off by Microsoft drones - our man behind this public-spirited deed was completely blanked by the software empire. 
 
 Microsoft only took notice when The Register contacted the company yesterday afternoon to enquire why its hotmail.co.uk site was registered to a private individual. 
 
 It was then we were told that the matter was under investigation and being "escalated". Worryingly, no one in the UK could deal with the matter so it was up to the US to sort things out. 
 
 Of course, while Microsoft's spinstresses tried to stall for time, the company was busy scurrying behind the scenes to sort out this embarrassing episode. It managed to contact hotmail.co.uk's new owner, grovel at their mistake and sort out the mess. By all accounts, hotmail.co.uk will be returned in a few days. 
 
 A spokeswoman for Nominet UK - the registry for all .uk domains - confirmed that hotmail.co.uk had failed to be renewed and was placed back into pool of available domains. 
 
 For Nominet's part, she confirmed that "all the standard renewal procedures were followed regarding hotmail.co.uk". 
 
 "I would like to remind companies and their agents that it is their responsibility to renew their domains," she said. 
 
 Despite repeated attempts to seek comment from Microsoft, the software giant has failed to cobble together any form of statement that might shed light on this situation. 
 
 In December 1999, Microsoft forgot to renew the domain name Passport.com, and so rendered its Hotmail service partially crippled. A Linux programmer, Michael Chaney, paid the $35 fee and promptly handed over ownership to Microsoft. Here is his story. ® 
 
 ® ||||| Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period.
– Google handed out more than $2 million to more than 300 people in 2015 who spotted bugs and security issues, but one award in particular stands out, reports Beta News. The odd sum of $6,006.13 went to Sanmay Ved, a former Google employee and current MBA candidate at Babson College in Massachusetts. Why the weird amount? It kind of spells "Google" numerically. "Squint a little and you’ll see it!" says Google's Online Security Blog in a post on the 2015 awards. It seems Ved was messing around with the Google Domains interface late one night in September (because don't we all?) when to his surprise the domain name Google.com appeared as available for purchase. For $12. So he found himself buying—with a credit card and all—one of the world's most famous domains. His moment of glory was quite literally just that—within a minute Google canceled the transaction, which Google can do because it owns the registration service itself. Ved says he doesn't know exactly what caused the glitch on Google's end, but he details the geekily sordid affair on his LinkedIn account. CNET speculates that Google missed a renewal deadline, and Ved was able to capitalize. A nice footnote: When Ved elected to donate his award to charity—it went to this education foundation—Google doubled it. Microsoft ran into a similar problem back in 2003 but did not immediately cancel the sale of Hotmail.co.uk. Fortunately for Microsoft, the buyer returned it that same day, the Register reported at the time. (Speaking of domains, Google has bought the entire alphabet.)