Google Doesn't Own Alphabet.com, BMW Does

The highly-publicized re-structuring of Google this week saw the birth of Alphabet, ushering a new era for the brand and its subsidiaries. All the pieces for the digital behemoth were in place, it seems, except for a key element: the website. As it turns out, “Alphabet.com” is actually owned by German automaker BMW as a platform for its fleet services company. As The New York Times reports, BMW isn’t looking to sell the domain name either, putting Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin in a bit of a precarious situation. To review, the re-structuring was intended as a means of Google differentiating its in-house, core products from it’s more ambitious projects such as Fiber, Calico and X. For now, Alphabet lives on the Internet at abc.xyz, while BMW is looking into whether the California-based company has infringed on its existing trademark. Stay tuned for developments on this story as they arise.