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- Hacker News
- I don't see the point of this rename. Why don't you also rename every city to city of America, and every road to American road?by 1718627440
- Hey Google. Don't you read these comments? Let's have a serious discussion.by sans_souse
- Hey it's me, ur Google. If you didn't want geography to be politicized, why the hell did you elect the guy who politicizes canned fucking beans?
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
by cosmicgadget - I had been waiting to see when Google and Apple maps will make this change. I believe both now do this "Gulf of Mexico -> America" rename, however I found that Comaps (which I learned about from someone on HN, shoutout to whoever that was) never did. I'm not sure how they decide on names, but it seems better than leaving it up to whatever the POTUS feels like at the moment.
If Trump renamed the state of NY to New Trumpland, would Google and Apple go along with it? Seems like they would. It's just embarrassing.
by c0nducktr - He might be limited to geological features under federal or split jurisdiction. So maybe the Cascades will become the Mountains of America and DC will become DT.by cosmicgadget
- In Google Maps app (non-American version) it is already visible as “Lake Ontario (Lake America)”. Also Mapy.com has dual names.
Canadian-American border cuts the lake so dual name is obvious as Canada doesn’t have any intention to rename it.
Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America) is the same situation. USA is the only country who changed the name so…
The other situation could be with cities or counties that are inside US territory.
Or take an example with Dept of War. Nobody abroad isn’t using Dept of Defense in their texts of anymore… (Btw Dept of War was since 1789 til 1949 then renamed to Dept of Defense.)
Different situation is with X. As the X is confusing for a lot of people, Twitter is added after slash to explain the situation (X/Twitter).
by sixtyj - This is news to me. Did carrot top order up another name change because Canada didn't roll over for him? :Dby skeledrew
- Yes.by mcphage
- Google needs to be broken up. The next democratic president will have to break them up into pieces. Future presidents will get to use trump's new powers of doing whatever he wants. With google, there is more than enough bad behavior to legally break them up that will survive the courts.
- Hey Google. Why would I ever choose to use a product administered by such abject cowards?by nmeagent
- What else are you going to use? Apple Maps? They're going to do the same thing. OpenStreetMaps? They don't have navigation. Waze? Got bought up by Google.by kalleboo
- This gave me the shove I needed to cancel some longstanding Google subscriptions.
So...thanks, Google, I guess?
by rpeden - We need a constitutional amendment codifying the existence independent agencies like the Federal Reserve, CFPB, social security administration, and USGS.
I wish Google and others weren't telling the emperor how regal his clothes look but it seems reasonable to remain synced with the USGS.
by cosmicgadget - Independent from who? The voters?
- Btb. Nepal and Tibet are facing the worst climate crisis and still several people are missing and unaccounted. But Google was so quick to update their maps in a jiff.by tesnorindian
- USGS and the Department of the Interior (or their leaders) were falling over themselves to tell Dear Leader how quickly they'd made the change.by FireBeyond
- Canadian companies and government websites that use embedded Google Maps are displaying “Lake America”. Not good.by brandon272
- At least 10m websites are using GMaps to display some stuff:
- I'm wondering, I haven't used the gmaps API. Is this because they're proxying maps requests through the US, or is there a specific header request to request the US version of the map, or is it just that they've a US-based GApps account?
Many of these are telcos that use "Buy Canadian" patriotism to get governments to protect them from international competitors. It should be scandalous if they're getting all their web front-end services from US companies. I know Google is the big name in maps, so that may be unavoidable and hard to shift, but if it's also the middle web-hosting providers... that's a lot less excusable for companies that love to wrap themselves in the Maple Leaf.
by Pxtl - I am Canadian. It is and it will stay Lake Ontario.
I am mad at Google for a lot of things, but this is not one of them. A map should represent the current reality. Google Maps defaults to the user’s local reality, which seems reasonable to me.
I worked at a mapping company and we had similar setups for contested borders. You would get the map that your government accepts. It was not the company’s prerogative to weigh in on those issues.
Remember that if Google Maps has to weigh in on obvious nonsense, it will also need to weigh in on far trickier issues, and at their scale, it might affect the outcome. This sort of legal neutrality seems like a better line of conduct to me.
by nicbou - One kicker is how many sites leveraging Google Maps API in Canada are showing "Lake of America". I'm not sure if that's because they're proxying the Google Maps requests through a US server, or they're using an API call to specifically request the US version of the map. But either way, it's a pretty bad faux pas, especially for oligarchic telcos that wrap themselves in the flag when they're begging for protection from international competitors.by Pxtl
- EU citizen here:
For us it still says Lake Ontario :-)
Not sure what Trump is looking forward to win with all these moves?
- > A map should represent the current reality. Google Maps defaults to the user’s local reality
Does it though? It’s showing the new name in every country except Canada. They could have limited this rename to USA only, but they didn’t.
by 1over137 - Google can take months or YEARS to make updates but this one it makes almost immediately? Don't confuse this for anything but kissing the ring.by pupppet
- I'm also Canadian. The nuance here is that this is not an average contested border or naming issue that mapping companies rightfully treat very carefully. There is no actual dispute between two peoples or two nations, or anyone, on what this landmark is called. The 'dispute' is that one man decreed it and everyone else bowed in respect and whispered "Yes sir Mr. President". If he decreed that the new standard of calling other countries in the US was to prepend "Future American Territory of" to their names or that the word "ocean" was being changed to "big American water", Google would have the changes rolled out by the end of the day for Americans, and would show the glorious new name in parentheses for the rest of the world.
I argue that using 'rules' against an entity that knows no rules is futile. Everyone pretends that things are going swimmingly and that the rules-based world order is alive and well, that if we just use enough rules and never make difficult choices that go against them, the threat will eventually go away. This is partially what allowed it to happen in the first place. As it stands now, obeying these orders isn't neutrality, it's enabling.
by tavavex - 2004: "Don't be evil"
2015: "Do the right thing"
2026: "Just press down a little harder on the neck there please, that'll do thank you."
by ModernMech - MapQuest is not the hero we deserve, but the hero we need right now:by seemaze