[Asia Economy Intern Reporter Kim Yeon-ju] Google has decided not to carry out its annual April Fools' prank this year. The company judged that responding to the global spread of the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19) is more important.
According to foreign media reports such as The Verge in the United States on the 30th, Lorraine Twohill, Google's Chief Marketing Officer, recently sent an email to employees stating, "There will be no April Fools' prank from Google this year."
She explained, "Our current goal is to help people," and added, "To respect everyone fighting COVID-19, let's postpone jokes until April next year."
She continued, "Although we have already decided not to do April Fools' pranks, there may be small projects within teams," and requested, "Please suspend all of these both internally and externally this time."
Google has held April Fools' events every April 1st since 2000. In 2013, it showed a treasure map and let netizens find it, and in 2016, it introduced a Google logo parodying Naver's logo to add fun to April Fools'. In 2018, it included 'Find Wally' on Google Maps.
Earlier, Google also canceled the annual developer conference 'Google I/O' scheduled for May to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
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