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Alphabet Doesn’t Own Its Obvious Social Media Pages, Domains

Late Monday afternoon, Google announced a major reorganization, and the establishment of a new parent company called Alphabet. For a more in-depth look at that, check here. Long story short, Larry Pag...
Alphabet Doesn’t Own Its Obvious Social Media Pages, Domains
Written by Josh Wolford
  • Late Monday afternoon, Google announced a major reorganization, and the establishment of a new parent company called Alphabet.

    For a more in-depth look at that, check here. Long story short, Larry Page is now the CEO of Alphabet, which now controls Google, Nest, Calico, Fiber, and all the other companies that used to be under “Google”. Sundar Pichai has been named the new CEO of Google, which still operates the core businesses like Android, YouTube, Maps, search, and ads.

    It was an interesting day for sure.

    The URL for Alphabet is abc.xyz. Yes, it’s a strange URL and yes, it’s a little godlike. It’s the alpha and the omega. Google (er…Alphabet) is your overlord.

    But Alphabet doesn’t really have control over any of the other domains and social media accounts that it would probably like to have. Not yet, at least.

    Of course, Alphabet doesn’t have abc.com. It also doesn’t have alphabet.com. That domain is owned by car company BMW. The site is down right now.

    Also owned by BMW – the verified Alphabet Facebook page:

    Screen Shot 2015-08-11 at 9.21.25 AM

    According to the page, Alphabet “is a leading provider of Business Mobility in Europe and has gathered extensive knowledge of international fleet management and leasing.”

    Over on Twitter, the situation is much the same.

    @Alphabet is manned by a guy named Chris Andrikanich from Cleveland, who describes himself as “Dad, Husband, Self-proclaimed geek who fires off regular gibberish, gobblety-gook about sports, tech, CLE, and whatever…”

    Mr. Andrikanich might find himself the recipient of a few calls pretty soon – and maybe a few hundred thousand dollars. It’s technically against Twitter rules to buy and sell handles – but it happens.

    Alphabet doesn’t own @AlphabetINC either.

    And just for good measure, someone’s already trolling Page and company with abc.wtf – which redirects to Bing.

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