Google announces support for Ukraine by giving $2M in Adwords credit

89 points by forcer 4 years ago | 24 comments

Ask your friends at Google to explain this joke donation of Adwords credit: https://www.androidcentral.com/google-response-ukraine-invasion

Ukraine needs real support not using this crisis to push your product!

If you want to make a statement switch off Google services in Russia. That is how revolutions are started!

Google makes less than %0.3 of their total revenue in Russia. Surely that is worth a sacrifice to end this unfair war and tell Russia they cannot invade their neighbors!

stonekyx 4 years ago |

Ten years ago I was trying to get a job in Google as hard as I could, but these years there are just less and less reasons to even consider applying. I mean, OK, their business model is built around advertisement, but seriously?

morelisp 4 years ago |

So let's be clear about what "donated adwords" means: It means if someone searches for "ukraine refugee help" they're going to get useful results about how to find help as a Ukrainian refugee or give aid to them; rather than a scam, Russian propaganda, or just whoever bid highest.

That should be table stakes of a search engine, not a laudable charitable donation.

thiscatis 4 years ago |

What a sad excuse of a company Google has become.

RicCo386 4 years ago |

Ha ha ha. If they would suspend Russian trolls, that would be more worthy...

And yet they suspend pro Ukrainian YT accounts ...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30467384

sergiotapia 4 years ago |

Such a Gavin Belson and Hooli move.

PenguinCoder 4 years ago |

Is this a legitimate, poorly executed joke? Or a legitimate offer from Google. Fucking disgusting.

IYasha 4 years ago |

Where were they when <I'd probably be redflagged for naming> certain mid-east countries were attacked?? :-| Such a show-off.

Pigalowda 4 years ago |

A pittance from a gigantic American corporation. I’m sure Ukraine appreciates this advertisement for Google. I guess it’s hard to advertise over all the “noise” of geopolitical events unless you attach your product to it.

inospeak1 4 years ago |

I don't see any reference to this on the internet other than this post. The link posted -> https://www.androidcentral.com/google-response-ukraine-invas...

says nothing about Adwords credit.

And I am surprised none of the commenters so far have noticed this...?

soulchild37 4 years ago | |

https://twitter.com/googleeurope/status/1497312501020696578?...

inospeak1 4 years ago | | |

Thanks! Had to give google the benefit of the doubt (even though I don't like them) because this sounded absurd.

1-6 4 years ago | |

Twitter posts are sometimes segmented, here’s better context for reference (when started from the top): https://twitter.com/googleeurope/status/1497312445303513094?...

endisneigh 4 years ago |

No good deed goes unpunished

yrgulation 4 years ago |

Pull out of russia google otherwise its just virtue signalling.

aeternum 4 years ago |

Remember when Google's motto was "Do no evil". Did they get rid of that?

IYasha 4 years ago | |

It was "Don't be evil" - and, yes, they've removed it :D

CPLX 4 years ago |

It’s the least they could do.

techdragon 4 years ago | |

The least they could do was nothing… this is just a little better than that. This isn’t 2 million of useful cash money, it’s -2 million of revenue. It sort of feels “cheap” to me.

And I’m wondering how senior the management chain has to be to approve something this large? Are we talking C suite? Or like Vice President of AdWords European business marketing division ?

klyrs 4 years ago | | |

More cynically, it's a $2M thumb on the scale of an auction, and if somebody wants to outbid the relevant keywords, that's pure profit.

burntoutfire 4 years ago | | |

Any decision with political ramifications surely needs to go through the highest echelons.

SkyLinx 4 years ago |

$2M total? That's literally pennies for them. LOL

infinitone 4 years ago |

This HAS to be a joke right?

thunkshift1 4 years ago |

The fuck