I am not sure about the validity of google "just" acquired the Plus symbol.
Plus, what was the price paid?
Could have been a buck. Or perhaps reg fee when it dropped.
IF you quote on part of the source, please read and update the reader on the entire source:
What is IDNA 2008 and How does it Impact Symbol Domains?
IDNA 2008 disallows about eight thousand characters that used to be valid, including all uppercase characters, full/half-width variants, symbols,and punctuation. It also interprets four characters differently.
So it appears that although individuals may have browsers & website software which can properly render the symbol domains, as soon as our software starts observing the IDNA2008 standard they wonât. However, even with IDNA2008, these domains are still changing hands.
This was posted in an article you posted from April 30th.