On Wednesday, Google Argentina has failed to renew its domain name in the country. This allowed an Argentinian guy to secure legal ownership of the name google.com.ar. After the said purchase and mistake on the end of Google, the said site became inaccessible--albeit for three hours.
Google Search Engine Bought for $5
According to Newsweek, the Argentinian man who bought the domain name of Google.com.ar was identified as Nicolás David Kuroña after he posted on Twitter that he has acquired the search engine for 540 Argentine Peso or a little over $5.Kuroña stated that he had purchased the search engine from domain registrar NIC Argentina when he noticed it was for sale.
Quiero aclarar que entre a https://t.co/XtzUy8WL36 vi el nombre de https://t.co/cK20BdyuxB disponible y lo compre legalmente como corresponde!
— Nicolas David Kuroña (@Argentop) April 22, 2021
Esto es lo que vi el día que compre el dominio de https://t.co/cK20BdyuxB, gracias por el apoyo !! pic.twitter.com/hYsVcEoLLj
— Nicolas David Kuroña (@Argentop) April 23, 2021
When Kuroña purchased the search engine, Argentina could not access the search engine and was reported unavailable for three hours. However, Google managed to restore things to normal after the country suffered technical difficulty accessing the site. Google and NIC Argentina have no further comments on how Kuroña managed to purchase the search engine and how it was registered on NIC as a product.
The publication reported that this kind of activity is called "Cybersquatting," which some people do online by holding, registering, and buying or selling a domain to make money out of it. The publication also noted that Kuroña could have probably bought Google.com.ar because Google Argentina forgot to renew its domain and did not turn on the auto-renew feature.
El que no conoce a DIOS, a cualquier santo le reza. pic.twitter.com/ZdBikmE52p
— Julian Yedlin (@jyedlin) April 22, 2021
el argentino menos ventajero le durmió el dominio a google
— jajaj alberto pelandez (@alpelandez) April 22, 2021
El que no conoce a DIOS, a cualquier santo le reza. pic.twitter.com/ZdBikmE52p
— Julian Yedlin (@jyedlin) April 22, 2021
For what it's worth, the main global page Google.com is available and accessible in the country during the shutdown and was not affected.
Google's Multiple Shutdowns
According to Android Police, this is not the first time a Google domain has failed to renew its policy. Last year, Google India domain suffered the same fate as Google Argentina when Blogspot.in had gone dark, shutting down thousands of smaller blog posts. However, Google has regained control of the blogpost domain.
The publication also reported that the Google Argentina domain is set to expire in July this year. With that said, it should not have appeared on NIC Argentina as an available domain name. Given that situation, questions about how Google.com.ar got into the NIC site still have no answers.
RT further pointed out that Google has also suffered a significant outage for thousands of users in New York with its search, mail, docs, and drive apps last week. Many have posted online that all Google-related applications were down, such as Google Docs, Gmail, and Google services for 2.300 users.
Is Google completely down for anyone else? pic.twitter.com/EDYAjSoq91
— John W. DeFeo (@johndefeo) April 16, 2021
hello #twitterverse is google docs down? google classroom? remote schooling has come to a screeching halt in our house. Is it just us?
— Rebecca Bratspies🪷RBratspies on most platforms (@RBratspies) April 16, 2021
This morning I checked Bing to see if Google was down, so it's gonna be one of those days.
— Jacob Tierney (@Soolseem) April 16, 2021
Besides that, Google experienced error messages and long loading times for its U.S. and Europe users earlier this week. This Google outage experienced in parts of the U.S. was because of the internet outage caused by Verizon, who blamed it on a fiber cut in Brooklyn. The significant internet blackout caused apps like YouTube, Google, Amazon and Zoom to shut down.
