Google succumbs to German cybersquatter's advances (maybe)

Google may have reached an agreement with the German network administrator who tried to strong-arm the company into giving him a job. Or maybe not.

Earlier this week, the Mountain View-obsessed online rag Google Blogoscoped reported that 27-year-old Sebastian Klein was using some good old-fashioned cyber-squatting in his attempt to land an IT post at the world's largest search engine.

After registering several Googlicious urls - including adwordsgoogle.de, docsgoogle.de, gdrivegoogle.com, and labsgoogle.de - Klein posted an open letter to the company, saying that he would relinquish the addresses if he got a job offer in return.

"Hi Google," he said, with the semi-English version of his rather unorthodox job application. "I would not like to keep these domains, earn also no money with it. I return it to you immediately free of charge. All I seek for is a job at Google."

His salary requirements were negotiable. "I would like to perform a lot and also be paid well," he went on to say. "However, quite clearly I am ready to put back with the money if for it the work is great fun."

But he insisted that Google fly him back to Germany once a week. "Important for me is that I every weekend somehow come to Cologne, in order to visit my daughter. Of course, there can be exceptions, but I would not be longer than a maximum of three weeks away from Cologne."

Well, little more than two days later, The Reg can confirm that Klein's URLs, including adwordsgoogle.de, have now been redirected to legitimate Google sites.

Has Google given into Klein's demands? Or did the IT-loving German give up on his scheme and redirect the URLs on his own? It's hard to say. Google has yet to respond to our request for comment. ®