Google: Lake Ontario/Lake America name change in the U.S. will appear in Maps
blog.googleMapQuest is not the hero we deserve, but the hero we need right now:
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.
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.
What would be a valid basis for relabeling a shared body of water for US users?
Would it be based on popular usage? The procedure by which it changed? Maybe we distinguish between bicameralism and presentment, an executive order, and the discretion of a bureaucrat. Or do we normally take the government database at its word but treat this as a sui generis "this guy is being an asshole" exception?
Not trying to interrogate you specifically. I am pondering these questions myself. I don't like that the name changed but I'm hard pressed to think of a good neutral policy that doesn't also sweep up a bunch of (far stickier) renaming situations around the world.
I'll elaborate on my opinion. I think that asking for a single universal rule that seemingly impartially decides how to display certain names shows that I conveyed what I meant too indirectly. Asking for a universal rule on map labeling is like asking someone to design a universally applicable test that can be taken by both a human and a gorilla. Universal rules will never work or be impartial because you can't assume everyone is a well-intentioned actor.
The real solution here is for Google to decide on their values. What they think is right, why they think that, and who they back because of it. Only that would help them distinguish between genuine conflicts and a temper tantrum, both domestically and internationally.
Of course, doing this would be extremely controversial and as a corporation they would never go for it anyway. What it would do is show their position to the world openly and let people judge them on that merit and decide if they really want to work with them. Applying universal rules that 'accidentally' happen to help a certain side is just as much of a political and ideological choice as what I've suggested above, it's just a lot more wishy-washy and coated in a pretense of rationality.
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.
A bit hyperbolic dont you think? Even if you disagree with the politics, you'd agree that updating a random restaurant's opening hours is different from updating a national landmark.
For instance, I checked Nepal area and Google Maps already shows the area as flood affected. It didnt take years.
Really? I thought Maps was pretty constistently up to date with GNIS changes.
In my local area Google Maps is still missing some rather crucial elements of a high-throughput road, which were added to OpenStreetMaps almost two years ago.
GMaps can be extremely slow when it comes to responding to user reports, or updating regional info like road networks or new subdivisions. A lot of that comes down to the fact that Google relies on government entities for authoritative information, which can mean waiting months or years for the local government to provide new info. The federal government updated this one quickly.
> 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.
What makes you think that? It says Lake Ontario here in the UK.
What makes me think that is the article being discussed. It says “Lake America” will be shown everywhere (though parenthetically) everywhere except Canada.
I live in Germany. It shows as Lake Ontario here.
EU citizen here:
For us it still says Lake Ontario :-)
Not sure what Trump is looking forward to win with all these moves?
Yes but the gulf of Mexico shows both names, which i don't understand... Why are we seeing the BS fake name in the EU at all?
He's done the math- this kind of moves is exactly what retains support from 30% of the US population - enough to sway elections.
> Not sure what Trump is looking forward to win with all these moves?
He just floods the media and everyone’s minds with a constant stream of junk.
Some is consequential, some is not. Either way, the stream is so continuous it is distracting from the actual important things he’s covering up (raping kids, creating his own extremely well funded gestapo, kidnapping presidents, murdering fishermen, fucking up a war he started, stealing the election, etc)
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.
We just got a bug in our app for this, you basically have to add `region=CA` when instantiating maps API, otherwise it defaults to something hmm, else (some says US, but in EU we clearly see Ontario, so there is some geoguessing or other mechanism behind)
Nice. TIL
This is where my position gets more nuanced. The default value should still be Lake Ontario, because that's what most of the world recognises it as. It's the most neutral name for it.
In general, I don't like that the world defaults to the Silicon Valley version of reality.
I mean is it the API or is it the website provider's metadata? I don't know anything about the gmaps API. I would assume the default locale would be that of the requester, not US (but then I know MS has the "Invariant locale" which is often best-practice, which is de-facto US... not sure if Google has similar).
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."
Canadian companies and government websites that use embedded Google Maps are displaying “Lake America”. Not good.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Independent from who? The voters?
Independent from the other three branches of government.
Do we the people get to elect the people in this new branch of government? What recourse do we have if they stop serving our interests?
To be entirely honest, I haven't drafted the full text of the amendment. The key is having such an entity, the specifics of appointment and recall could follow any number of templates.
If it were me, agency commissioners elected by popular vote to a six year term, subject to recall by vote and impeachment by Congress. But that's orthogonal to the purpose of the branch.
The current legislative branch has proven one thing. We the people must have the ability to remove elected officials. This would allow for us to come together when we realized we fucked up and our leadership needs change now.
The people must become the 4th branch of the government to balance the three when they unify in corruption.
Independent from the clown sitting in the Oval Office, renaming large bodies of water with a sharpie pen.
independent from the government, yes. Because government has its own perverse incentives that need to be checked (like redistricting).
So, who pays their salaries?
Same ways that other non-elected government staff is paid. Such funding tends to be mandated into the a law or constitution alongside the establishment itsrlf. That's the case for California's IDC.
If you're suggesting a rogue government with the ability to deprive such independent organizations of funding as a means of control, you're not wrong. If the government and people united have enough of a majority (or enough lack of accountability), laws are as valuable as the paper it's printed on. Leaving the latter aside, it's also just models from the federal constitution that (nearly?) all state constitutions tend to be living documents. Nothing is truly set in stone and most mechanisms tend to have overridde mechanics with a majority or supermajority.
This gave me the shove I needed to cancel some longstanding Google subscriptions.
So...thanks, Google, I guess?
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?
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.
Organic Maps is an open sourced mapping service with turn by turn.
I use mapbox for turn-by-turn for hours a day every day, and it's based on OSM.
Bonus: when something is fucky, I can actually generally get it fixed, unlike google which continues to report an 80kph speed limit in various residential streets and school zones in my city.
This is news to me. Did carrot top order up another name change because Canada didn't roll over for him? :D
Yes.
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?
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.
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).
It should be noted that the name change in 1949 was done by an act of Congress, whereas the recent name was just an executive order, which has the same legal force as me scribbling on a piece of paper. The official legal name remains the Department of Defense and that’s what everyone ought to continue calling until and unless Congress passes a law to rename it.
> In Google Maps app (non-American version) it is already visible as “Lake Ontario (Lake America)”. Also Mapy.com has dual names.
In Canada I'm seeing simply "Lake Ontario" still.
That's what I see from Denmark.
Same for central Europe: Lake Ontario
The Department of War was split into the Department of the Army and the Department of the Air Force in 1947. The Department of War didn't include the Navy.
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.
Hey Google. Don't you read these comments? Let's have a serious discussion.
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.
In 2017 Sergey was seen protesting Trump’s signature Muslim Ban policy. A highly visible act of resistance against one of the things that Trump cared about the most.
Does anybody believe that this would happen today?
Happens constantly. it's just that tech decided to kiss the ring this round instead, so it lies in other institutions (and the people) to protest.
Trump winning the popular vote really scrambled things
All these big tech capitulations are their bets that the rule of law will not protect them, but kissing the ring will
It's a bad bet, ultimately - b/c the benefits and protections of kissing the ring are a mirage - their weakness is an invitation
Except neither of those things happened (me voting him in or them responding to a normy on HN)
You (pl.)
Anyone else worried that the next president (even Democrat, if they manage to get one) may well let some of the name changes be?
I worry that the next president isn’t going to lead a charge to codify limits on the power of the presidency, that zero real lessons will be learned and we’ll continue to arrange vast swathes of the system to rely on the good faith of a single person.
The name change isn’t the problem. The problem is that it was even possible in the first place by just the whim of one person.
They're not going to change a damn thing. I saw an interview with Newsom who was asked exactly that and he dodged answering.
Note that that might just be because he doesn't want to say something that might lose supporters, not because he would actually do nothing. (I'm not saying he would definitely do something, just that what he does or doesn't say about it right now doesn't indicate much.)
A buddy and I have been joking about when there will be a Western American Ocean and an Eastern American Ocean.
My friends and I are just going to refer to it as Lake Epstein until/unless the executive order is undone. I mean, Trump isn't the only one that can unilaterally change the names of things and in the end, what matters isn't what the government says the name should be but what people actually call it.
Now someonen should place a pin onto Epstein Island and give it whatever related renaming with regards to Trump
Hopefully Mount McKinley will stay. It was named that in 1896 and held that name until Obama decided to make a political statement.
Alaskans actually prefer Denali, even the republicans didn’t want the name changed back again. The state of Alaska itself officially adopted Denali as the official name in 1975, long before Obama made the political statement you are hallucinating. This is just Trump making a statement pretending that Obama was being woke rather than requesting something the Alaskans requested on their own.
Least of the worries. Punishing and removing nazis in their deep state is a bit higher up
This is pathetic and embarrassing by Google. They're going to hide behind some corporate policy if criticized, but it's so cowardly, there wouldn't have been any consequences for ignoring it
They could get blacklisted like Anthropic. Or... something. Carrot top will always find a way to express his displeasure.
Not surprising after their fawning at the inauguration. Google loves the toddler in chief.
I don’t really care what the lake is called, but can we have some creativity, or at a bare minimum consistency? Gulf of America at least makes sense as a name swap, as it previously shared a name with a country and it still does after the change. Shouldn’t this at least be Lake New York?
Presidents change names of things all the time.
Why are people fretting over this change?
> Presidents change names of things all the time.
Authoritarian presidents (e.g. Erdogan, Putin, Xi Jiping) do it. Democratic presidents follow institutional processes and diligence.
Your argumentation is very much like: "If the Mafia kills people why shouldn't I also be allowed to kill people?"
> Why are people fretting over this change?
Because it is a diversion from the things that really matter: inflation, war, the loss of international standing of the US. You know when you admonish a little boy about something wrong he did and he replies: "Look over there!". Yep, your country is governed by an octogenarian with the brain of a 4 year old boy. And the people that venerate him are equally stupid.
So now instead of using the acronym HOMES to remember the names of the Great Lakes, we will use SHAME?
That is pretty great.
How do we charge the people that caused all of these expenses for the US?
Charging and convicting of felonies didn't seem to fix it.
The Trump charging and convicting didn't happen fast enough during Biden and now Trump's immune and has pardoned his co-conspirators.
Was Obama allowed to prosecute foreign influence operations or was he prevented from interfering in elections?
Remember when Mitch filibustered Obama's SC nomination because presidents are lame ducks in their final year in office?
Great work continuing to deny rights unequally according to medical status!
>Was Obama allowed to prosecute foreign influence operations or was he prevented from interfering in elections?
He launched https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossfire_Hurricane_(FBI_inves..., "but the evidence available to investigators did not establish that the Trump campaign had 'conspired or coordinated' with the Russian government".
>Remember when Mitch filibustered Obama's SC nomination because presidents are lame ducks in their final year in office?
It wasn't a filibuster, McConnell didn't bring it to a vote at all. But I do remember the episode, and I'm mad about it. The Democrats must propose and relentlessly campaign on supreme court reform. Have the longest-serving justice replaced every Presidential term, and change the rules so if the President proposes a candidate, they MUST be voted on.
>Great work continuing to deny rights unequally according to medical status!
I don't know what you mean by this.
I'm also not quite sure how your comment in general is responsive to the assertion that Trump felonies should have been investigated and prosecuted faster, before he was reelected. They had 4 years under Biden, it should have been possible.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assessing_Russian_Activities_a... mentions their federally-funded IRA: Internet Research Agency: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency
did Russians troll for Trump? https://www.google.com/search?q=did+Russians+troll+for+Trump... :
Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_20...
Biden is also from PA? Harris is a former prosecutor (and was a cosponsor of the MORE Act).
Trump hired Prosecutor Acosta, who prosecuted Epstein.
Trump's hotel in a South American county is now a Marriott. Trump sold the post office hotel in DC after Trump's first term in office.
Trump recently had 300 accounts closed at Capital One following an AML (Anti-Money Laundering) review?
I guess he's right that he can get away with whatever he wants at taxpayer expense.
Trump on getting away with murder on fifth avenue https://www.google.com/search?q=Trump+on+getting+away+with+m...
Some 75-100 people were killed to take Mr. Maduro into custody in Brooklyn.
How many people has the US government killed in the Caribbean? https://www.google.com/search?q=How+many+people+has+the+US+g... :
> 227
In a Zone of Peace. Outside of US Territorial waters.
That justifies at-fault divorce in every state with at-fault divorce.
Meanwhile, these Kishner kids are just killing it. They already sold Madden and FIFA and EA to foreign interests, and almost sold FIFA and WB to foreign interests too.
All US presidents are immune before the ICC, but most other NATO member states do not operate with immunity before ICC.
You had a trade spat and just totally rocked each other up on the boards and so now everyone else must waste money on new maps with a new name for an old geological feature that will now be another symbol of you weakly sabotaging my f country?
Remember how this guy couldn't get a loan in 2016? How he was hundreds of RICO millions in debt to foreign banks and couldn't get a loan? Now we all need to waste money for their gold-plated vanity needs.
Title is: How the GNIS Lake Ontario/Lake America name change in the U.S. will appear in Maps
The enablement of this man by america is unreal.
It should be Lake America (Lake Ontario) in America and Lake Ontario elsewhere.
Blindly relying on GNIS is silly, particularly when that dependency is forced on users.
(Also, what fucking law exempts GNIS edits from the APA? Can a Democrat President just rename everything in every red state to random strings?)
For others who didn't know, the APA is the Administrative Procedure Act: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Administrative_Procedure_Act
>Can a Democrat President just rename everything in every red state to random strings?
A Democrat president must do this to teach the Republican strategists, representatives and voters consequences of actions. Then they will be ready for 'sensible compromise, reform and limits on executive power'.
In what sense are these renamings attacks on Democrats specifically?
The entire Trump Presidency has been a uniquely partisan fiasco. I live in Wyoming—we have almost zero ICE enforcement. The brown shirts are being deployed to cities run by Democrats in states run by Democrats.
I’m not advocating for counterbattery partisanship per se. But if demonstration is literally what it takes to get this to stop (or escalate to a point where everyone agrees it’s a crisis), so be it. At the very least, someone should be promising this to primary voters to get the conversation going.
I get that there is a partisan fiasco. I also think these geographic renamings are tacky and childish. I get that dems are disproportionately bothered by them, I just dont see how they are specifically attacks on the dems. Its not like Trump is renaming the Sacramento to retard river or something.
If anything, it strikes me more as a flood the zone tactic, not that the dems need help with distraction - They were obsessing over some stupid reflecting pool while Jan 6 pardon expansions were taking place.
Google doesn't think anyone is going to break them up. The only solution is to break them up when republicans lose power.
There's a similar issue with the Sea of Japan/East Sea. The problem is that Trump is creating these new issues by renaming bodies of water.
That is not the same thing at all. That is an actual historical debate. Yes, the sea of japan is technically wrong, but the ones asking for east sea are the ones who also said they would compromise if both names were used. We can prove east sea predates sea of japan.
Don't equate real things with fake issues trump pretends are real. Lake of america is political propaganda. It's not real.
I agree. it's also totally dumb to have serveral bodies of water named of 'merica.
Since politicians just randomly changing maps and borders is now a thing...
I heard that the US is now the 14th Canadian Province, South and True. We need to practice our politeness, learn to have gravy on our fries, and get ready to give up our guns, for the good of the people, eh.
On the plus side, Tim Hortons, here we come!
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... seven second pause ...
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Now that's what I'm talking about
I hope this change cost Google lots of $ because we all know in 2 years all these insane things Trump did we be reverted.
Also how will maps work in Canada and other parts of the world ? I doubt they will change it there,
I expect them to have a whatever complex global entity/object model, allowing them to deliver whatever they want on a ruleset matching some criteria like location etc., so the change shouldnt be that huge.
Maybe someone from Google is around and can explain better.
Weak and pathetic
thankfully Apple Maps still has Lake Ontario
The Biden administration in 2022 set a USA record by renaming 643 geographic features nationwide, in an effort to excise a specific term which became offensive when Americans began using it. For the record, Google Maps, as well as Apple Maps, have complied with all of these renamings.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographic_Names_Information_S...
Though the US Gov renamed many places in 1962 (Kennedy), and again in 1974 (Nixon/Ford), they conspicuously left more than a few of them extant, as mentioned in the above article.
Craven.
Ontario is not simply the name of a Canadian province; the name has Indigenous roots. Replacing it with the name of an Italian explorer would be deeply disrespectful to First Nations communities. You should probably rename the Michigan state too along with its lake if you have such disrespect for First Nations.
This specific argument will move some people who weren't in favor of the rename in the direction of supporting it.