Google Just Bought the Alphabet

Guess Google execs are serious about that whole reorg under the Alphabet parent-company thing. Just days after Alphabet officially became Google's holding company, it scooped up a brand-new domain name: abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz.com, which has been around since 1999 and was purchased for an unspecified amount, NBC News reports. The page isn't functional as of this post, and a company rep says, "We realized we missed a few letters in abc.xyz, so we're just being thorough." (Google set up that website in August.)

It's hard to imagine Google directing the general public to use the site—would you want to type in all those letters every time?—and NBC notes the domain purchase may simply be a preemptive strike to keep others from usurping it for their own use. Two domains the company probably won't be able to get its hands on: ABC.com (for the American Broadcasting Company, owned by Disney) and alphabet.com, which BMW is unlikely to give up, notes Consumerist. If you'd been hoping to nab the domain for yourself, you can always try to cybersquat the site away when Google's hold on it expires in August 2018. (Alphabet has ditched its "Don't Be Evil" motto for one that's not as quirky.)