Aside from other announcements, Google announced this evening that its Voice VoIP service and Fi MVNO are waiving fees to Ukraine. In addition, Project Shield protections were updated.
Google Fi has waived international calling fees from Ukraine and the US to Ukraine, as have other carriers in the past week. Additionally, Google Voice offers free calls to Ukraine with per minute rates of $0.00 for personal Gmail accounts:
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- Ukraine – Kiev
- Ukraine – Landline
- Ukraine – Lviv
- Ukraine – Mobile
- Ukraine – Mobile – Astelit
At the same time, Google said it continues to see “DDoS attacks against a number of Ukraine sites, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, as well as search services like LiveUaMap.” Its Project Shield service currently protects more than 150 websites in Ukraine.
According to today’s updated blog post, this includes news publications and humanitarian organizations as well as Ukrainian government and embassy websites:
We have expanded eligibility for Project Shield, our free protection against DDoS attacks, so that Ukrainian government websites, embassies worldwide and other governments in close proximity to the conflict can stay online, protect themselves and continue to offer their crucial services.
Google says it has “communicated its availability to Ukraine government representatives.”
The Play Store in Ukraine is also highlighting the Ukrainian Alarm (Повітряна тривога) app so that Android users can get official air raid sirens on their phone:
Ukrainian developers created this app in cooperation with the Ukrainian government to give people better air raid warnings.
Google Cloud credits are being offered to humanitarian organizations, while the company is committing $10 million to “organizations delivering both immediate humanitarian aid and longer-term assistance for refugees in Poland.” It joins Google’s previous $15 million commitment split between employee matching, direct grants, and advertising credits.