Currently, lots of companies around the world are doing their best to support Ukraine. The software and tech company Google has announced its decisions about the ongoing situation. The announcement has been published on the blog with the name of Kent Walker, the president, and the global affairs of Google.
$10 million cash, $5 million Ads credits
The company will be delivering a total of $15 million to Ukraine via Google.org. One-third of this money is gathered from Google employees. The other $5 million will be directly paid by Google. The remaining $5 million will be delivered as Google advertising credits for humanitarian and intergovernmental organizations for resettlement information.
The Search and Maps features are also updated in the Ukraine borders. When people search for refugee or evacuation-related terms, they will be directed to United Nations’ resources. The traffic info on Maps is also disabled for security reasons. As another security measure, Google will be blocking possible malicious activity targeting the Ukrainian government and military officials.
Google is blocking RT and Sputnik channels on YouTube across Europe as well. The company also paused the monetization of Russian state-funded media across all platforms. Google systems will deliver the most authoritative results when people search terms related to the Ukrainian war on all platforms.
Some services will still work in Russia
Lastly, the company has stated that most of Google’s services such as Maps, Search, and YouTube will continue to work in Russia. Their reason for leaving those services available is to provide global information and perspectives to Russian citizens; which looks pretty reasonable. However, in this scenario, the Russian government might be blocking Google if results from Sputnik and RT do not appear in searches. We might see the results of Google’s measures in a few days.