It still shows Lake Ontario for me (I’m in the US), but I may not have all the latest Android updates.
It would be hilarious if it showed as Lake Ontario for Canadians and only Lake America for USAians.
That is how it has always worked. Most of the rest of the world sees Gulf of Mexico and will see Lake Ontario.
There are a lot more disputed and conflicting geographical names than these two. Google has a system in place that aligns naming by country.
google maps, australia
I’m in Denmark and Google maps has Gulf of America in parenthesis. Lake Ontario is still just Lake Ontario, though.
Pretty sure that’s what it is, no sarcasm
It doesn’t depends on a update but as the official name of it in the country you are located. Gulf of Mexico is still Gulf of Mexico everywhere but the US. Lake Ontario is going to keep being Lake Ontario everywhere but the US.
google maps, from australia
This is what I see, too. I’m in South America with my location turned off and a VPN running on my device with a US IP address.
A lot of time without checking out, but is the same in Brazil
I’d love to be a fly on the wall in the room at Google where the discussions are being had as to what to label the lake. If I’m to be charitable, I’d assume they’ve renamed it because they’re consistently following an internal rule which says they use geographic names from the GNIS, which was updated by the executive order, and they haven’t yet decided whether they should make an exception in this case. Every nonsensical rename in the GNIS weakens its credibility as an accurate database. I’m sure the debates are interesting. We don’t actually know if this is Google “bending the knee” or sticking with the rename for some other more technical reason.
Google has no decision to make here. They have a policy and system that aligns geographical names based on country records. The rest of the world will continue to see Gulf of Mexico and Lake Ontario. Those are not the only two conflicted names across the world, there are far more.
Apple still lists the lake as Ontario on their maps, so for now it’s just Google being particularly sycophantic towards the Trump administration.
Apple well change it though, they did for the Gulf of Mexico.
I am in the long process of DeGoogling. When I saw this post I set my VPN location to Canada.
That was fast
They’re always coming up with new and interesting ways to show how much they suck.
Edit: It’s Lake Ontario. It’s always been Lake Ontario. Sorry Canada, for our moron-in-chief.
They need to keep Daddy Orange happy to keep the administration friendly to their corporate excesses.
If you go to the USGS map, you see a banner that says
Per Secretarial Order 3453, Lake Ontario has been renamed to Lake America. The basemaps for this application are in the process of being
Presumably the sentence finishes if you aren’t on mobile. Secretarial Order 3453 points you to Executive Order 14420, which is Delivering Gold Standard Childhood Vaccine Recommendations for Americans. I’m starting to think we don’t have the best and brightest leading the country, you guys.
Presumably the sentence finishes if you aren’t on mobile
That is both funny and correct, the full sentence is:
Per Secretarial Order 3453, Lake Ontario has been renamed to Lake America. The basemaps for this application are in the process of being updated to reflect this name change.
:P
Google couldn’t wait to roll it out… Fuck those fascist ego strokers.
Not even a bit of pushback. Dead silence from a them, just straight up compliance.
It’s almost as if Alphabet/Google and the tyrant oligarchs are one and the same. That would be preposterous, though, right?
They are an arm of the government lol they for sure had this one queued up before this was even announced
Probably. Didn’t a Google engineer recently get arrested for insider trading, but got off on a technicality? Something like that.
Why would they push back? there is nothing in it for them, and their shareholders
Lake Ontario in Australia
Sorry, can’t find where to upload an image in Summit
Yeah, Google has done this for at least 15 years.
If you view the Ukrainian border in Russia, it’s different than if you view it in a NATO country
Same for the border between India and China depending on which side you’re on
Same for the Gulf of Mexico/Gulf of America
If you view this in the US, it’s America, if you view it in Canada it’s Ontario.
They change the map to match whatever the country you’re viewing from says it is
State-affirming propaganda. Got it.
If google maps is unable to properly label the names of cities, lakes, etc, then it shouldn’t be allowed to operate.
Block google maps in Canada, problem solved
block google everywhere out of the usa
It is labeling them properly though? In the US it’s called Lake America which is now the official American name for it. In the rest of the world it’s named Lake Ontario.
Thing is, it’s not unusual for bodies of water to have different names depending on where you’re from. What we call Läänemeri (Western Sea), the Germans call Ostsee (Eastern Sea). You likely know it as the Baltic Sea.
But it’s not called that, and it’s not the official name.
Naming shit isn’t a presidential power. His declaration has no more weight than if he announced that from now on your legal name was Vicky.
It’s silly and stupid, but also genuinely dangerous when groups with as much power as Google has declare that they’re willing to let a madman dictate how they describe reality.
Never ever forget this disgusting capitulation. Might legitimately be the worst thing they’ve done, for an audience of one.
There was also the Gulf of Mexico situation. Oh and also when they removed Holocaust Remembrance, Pride, and various Heritage events from Google Calendar like, the week Trump took office. Oh and don’t forget the time they donated millions to Trump’s 2024 campaign, you know, the one after he’d already attempted a coup on the US government and where he was promising mass deportations, attacks on the “enemy from within”, and loads of other lovely stuff like that. Oh and let’s not leave out their participation in the creation of an Orwellian mass surveillance state.
Honestly, this is pure overreaction once again. It’s well known that Google (and most non-OSS maps) show their information for your location based on the official sources for that location. The new, official name in the US for Lake Ontario is Lake America, like it or not. That this is stupid, unhinged and a fully retarded Trump take is true, but it’s official for the American side. Canada could do the same and call it Lake Canada. It doesn’t change how other countries call it, but any country could name it the way it wants.
This is not some Trumpist at Google doing insider work. This is not a conspiracy of Google supporting Trump. It’s that Google maps is querying its data from some source and pushing it into maps, as they do with any country official source, if it’s available.
Again, not defending Google’s other shit or Trumps madness, but in this case they’re showing the correct data. What’s the issue here?
Complying with Trump’s insane bullshit is supporting him. They should draw a fucking line and not update the map. Or use a source that hasn’t changed the name. It still shows lake Ontario in Canada. He should have to force every single fucking thing he does through court to make anything happen.
They could do the right thing and resist the fascism. You know, like how anybody with a platform and a moral compass would do. But I suppose expecting shitty companies to not be shitty is too much to ask.
Not Google’s job to take on the US government, that was the role of the people
And It’ll be our role to burn down their offices and data centers.
and then where in your fantasy are you sitting in jail? or is this some sort of french revolution fantasy you’re having?
Simping for fascists. Nice.
This is not about what you consider fascism, or who you like or not. Trump has been elected, and even if it’s because of a bunch of morons, but he is rightfully and unfortunately the president. He threw a tantrum once again, and renamed the lake for the US - again, also rightfully, as any country could do, and any other country may ignore it, as they also do. Google Maps (specifically Maps, not Google as a corp) job is to provide accurate cartography, and in the US the accurate and legitimate name is now Lake America.
He only has the power to do that for the executive branch. He can’t compel citizens or corporations to follow along - not with the law anyway. He is getting away with it because the people whose pockets he’s lining are happy to play along as long as number goes up. That’s all they care about.
How exactly are you imagining Maps doing that change, taking this as a specific example? Pichai’s red trump phone ringing? Immediate order within Google after someone read Trump’s xwitter posts?
For the US Google polls the data from GNIS (which is an official government entity), just as there is the CGNDB for Canada, OSNGD for the UK, CGA for Australia, and something similar for anything that’s remotely considered a first world country.
This is not a political change, it probably would cost Google more effort to not follow the rename, instead of relying on the systems and processes that are in place for years already.
If this were about pulling data from GNIS, it would have taken at least a month to show up on their platform. Its governent data and legacy data pipelines.
Some Google developer had to write an entry for this to happen so fast. 100%.
Do you have a source for Google pulling for GNIS? I can’t imagine it would be an easy thing to collate with Google’s own data about geographical features.
He only has the power to do that for the executive branch. He can’t compel citizens or corporations to follow along - not with the law anyway.
Exactly. And when companies and citizens are rushing to comply out of either fear of retribution or the hope that sycophancy will keep them in the protected “in-group”?..
Thats fascism.
He’s also threatening companies with legal action if they don’t follow his every whim. Trump is a 10 year old bully daydreaming about being a mob boss in an 80 year old corpse.
Lol what are you even trying to do here
It’s well known
It is their practice but it’s not a law of nature, or even a law of any kind. As an American company they could have shown balls and ignored Trump shenanigan. Expectedly, they didn’t.
Google 100% supports trump. as do Amazon, Facebook, and Apple.
That’s Sundar Pichai
There has never been a square meter of dirt that deserved a bomb dropped on it more than that square meter of dirt in that photo. The world would instantly be a better place.
Then why does Google show “Gulf of America” in brackets to Europeans? Why did Google update “Lake America” to Americans faster than the actual usgs maps?
Sycophancy is the answer.
Private companies are not compelled to follow executive orders. They are instructions for the executive branch of the us government, per article 2 of the us constitution situation. Not the entire country. Not even the entire US government. Trump acts as if he is a king with limitless power, and then proceeds as if it were true. It works because the current US government is happy to play along, as are giant corpos, such as Google, et al. This is a massive psyop brothers and sisters. Use Google when you have to. Use Amazon if you have to. Fill up your gas tank and wash your lettuce. But for god’s sake do not be fooled, and do not play along.
That’s cause them dudes in the Epstein Files. It’s always Tit for Tat.
