Google's description of its coronavirus site stops short of what President Trump described

Related: Trump says Google CEO Sundar Pichai called to apologize (TechCrunch)

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Source: CNN Business

Google's description of its coronavirus site stops short of what President Trump described

By Brian Fung, CNN Business
Updated 1156 GMT (1956 HKT) March 16, 2020

(CNN Business) — Google on Sunday announced a nationwide website dedicated to providing Americans with information about the novel coronavirus.

But that description stops short of what President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence have spent days saying Google was developing very quickly: A website meant to assess patient symptoms and to direct Americans to "testing at a nearby convenient location."

Google is working with the US government on the informational site, said Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google and its parent company, Alphabet, in a blog post. The website will contain educational material and "best practices for prevention," and will launch late Monday.

What Google is truly working on has been the source of much confusion after the administration's apparent announcement of a nationwide testing website created by Google. Shortly after Trump and Pence made their announcement on Friday, Verily, an Alphabet subsidiary and a sister company of Google, acknowledged that it is set to launch a website that will allow users to plug in their symptoms and be directed to testing sites if necessary. But Verily made clear that the website, known as Project Baseline, will be restricted to California residents for now — and is not ready for nationwide service. Verily is not the same as Google, though both are owned by the same parent.

Google's website is being prepared for a national audience but appears far simpler than what Trump and Pence described.

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After media reports on Friday about the gap between what the Trump administration promised and what Verily had announced, Trump slammed the reports as "fake news." On Sunday, he claimed that "the head of Google" — apparently referring to Pichai — called him to "apologize" and that everything Google has announced has "substantiated what I said on Friday." Google declined comment on any call between the president and the company's CEO.

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Read more: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/15/tech/google-coronavirus-description/index.html

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Source: TechCrunch

Trump says Google CEO Sundar Pichai called to apologize

Frederic Lardinois@fredericl / 6:05 pm EDT • March 15, 2020

At what is now a daily coronavirus press briefing at the White House, President Trump today said that Google CEO Sundar Pichai called him to apologize. What Pichai apologized for wasn’t immediately clear, but Trump then went on to praise Google’s communications team for supposedly substantiating Trump’s comments about Google’s coronavirus screening site.

“I want to thank the people at Google and Google Communications because as you know, they substantiated what I said on Friday,” said Trump. “The head of Google, who is a great gentleman — said — called us — and apologized. I don’t know where the press got their fake news, but they got it someplace. As you know, this is from Google [holds up printout of Google Communication’s statement on Twitter]. They put out a release [drops the paper on the ground] and you guys can figure it out yourselves and how that got out, and I’m sure you’ll apologize. But it would be great if we could really give the news correctly. It would be so, so wonderful.”

We reached out to both Google and the White House for further clarification about this call. Update (4:20pm PT): Google says it doesn’t have anything to share about this call.

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Read more: https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/15/trump-says-google-ceo-sundar-pichai-called-to-apologize/