War in Ukraine: How Google is helping locals

Alert of air raids and indications of places of accommodation are on the program of the changes made by Google for Ukrainians. From day to day, the American giant is forced to adapt to the conflict in Ukraine while suspending a large number of its activities in Russia.

While Russia censors the social networksand that giants like instagramFacebook or even Twitter are forced, on the fly, to modify their functions or their conditions of use, google chose to help people in Ukraine. After having deactivated the traffic info function in real time as a security measure, the firm has set up an alert system which complements the air raid sirens in the country.

This only concerns Android users for the moment, and it is an automatic notification system. ” Tragically, millions of people in Ukraine now rely on the alerts of air strike to try to get to safetywrites Google in a statement Thursday. This work complements the country’s existing air raid warning systems and is based on alerts already issued by the Ukrainian government. »

How to find accommodation in Poland or in a neighboring country?

This announcement comes the day after the bombing of a maternity ward and a children’s hospital in the city of Mariupol in southern Ukraine. In its press release, Google also explains that it is developing a function to allow hotel owners in countries around Ukraine indicate whether they offer free or reduced-price accommodation to refugees fleeing their country. ” As we compile this information over the next few weeks, we will enable people to quickly find these places in the search engine and on Maps,” is suing Google.

Although the search engine, YouTube and Gmail are still operating in Russia, the American giant says it has suspended the display of Google ads there, as well as the vast majority of its commercial activities such as new registrations for its cloud services. and the functions of monetization for YouTube users in Russia.