In today's News: Google slips up

Surfing the web today, I came across a story about a guy who owned the domain "Google.com" for 12 seconds. Wait, what?!  Turns out former Google employee, Sanmay Ved, was bored and happened upon Google's website-buying service.  Seeing that one of the world’s most visited domains was available for purchase, Mr. Ved added the domain name to his cart, and paid $12 (that's right, twelve) for control of the URL.

  
So, let's recap.  Guy is online, sees a domain name that he likes is being (1) offered for sale, guy (2) accepts the offer and (3) pays consideration for control of that domain name. Sounds like Mr. Ved has a valid contract in darn near any jurisdiction in the country/world!  Regardless of the fact that Google tried to unilaterally rescind the contract saying, "someone had registered the site before he could," really shouldn't fly based on conventional legal wisdom (unless that really was a critical part of the contract).

I'm guessing Mr. Ved now has the mother of all breach of contract lawsuits sitting in his lap. Were I the law Librarian he sought at his local county law library, I might suggest he take a look at:

• Restatement of the Law 2d: Contracts (ALI)
• Modern Law of Contracts (Thomson Reuters)
• California Law of Contracts (CEB)
• AmJur Proof of Facts (Thomson Reuters)

Yep, always gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling when I read about someone getting one up on their Goliath.  If ever you find yourself behind the eight ball, know that the good folks at your local county law library has just what you need to get up at at 'em.