Google’s Graveyard

Google’s shutting down its confusingly-named One Today service next week

Another G app bites the dust, this time with only a week’s notice.

On February 6 Google will shut down an app called Google One Today, Android Police reports, adding that it has no relation to the search and advertising behemoth’s rebranded Google Drive paid tier. What’s weird about the whole thing, other than the name, is that Google didn’t do that much to publicize the app’s existence, and it’s only given those users who did know about and use it a week’s notice of its imminent demise.

It raised funds for non-profits — Launched seven years ago, One Today is an app for Android and iOS that let users make donations of $1 or more to various, U.S.-based charities and non-profits with a few on-screen taps. Donations weren’t subject to any transaction fees, they were tax-deductible, and users’ contact information wasn’t shared with the organizations they chose to support, and users could see stories about how their donations would be used.

It’s going to pay out and shut down — Remaining disbursements will happen by February 6, after which the service will cease to exist, but new signups have already been closed and in its letter to users announcing the end of the service, Google says any open projects will be deleted.

Was One Today an abject failure? Was Google worried users were finding the similarities to Google One confusing? Does one of the world’s wealthiest companies hate charity? We may never know. What we do know is we wish Google was killing something less noble instead… like Duo.