Technology

What's dumb about this is that in their jurisdiction (Mexico) it is actually the "Gulf of Mexico" in Google Maps, they don't get the "Gulf of America" name. In the US it's labelled as "Gulf of America" without mentioning "Gulf of Mexico" which you could argue Google has to do because it (theoretically) follows national laws everywhere it operates.

That's why Korean users don't see the Sea of Japan to their east, they see the East Sea. That's why in some locations the Persian Gulf is referred to as the Arabian Gulf instead. It's also why inside India the borders you see for Kashmir don't match the borders you see for Kashmir if you're in Pakistan. The rest of the world sees a third version of that area with areas marked as disputed.

What's really annoying is that every other country in the world is exposed to this "Gulf of America" silliness, even countries where people don't speak English. I can understand (just barely) having "(Gulf of America)" under "Gulf of Mexico" in English-speaking countries because if someone is hearing news from a US source and they refer to the Gulf of America, it might be useful to know what they're talking about. It's in the news now, but in 3 years say you're a high-school kid trying to do a geography report and can't find the feature on the map, that could be annoying.

But, this parenthesis rule apparently even extends to Germany, where it's "Golf von Mexiko (Golf von Amerika)". There's no reason to include a name that doesn't exist in your language on your version of the maps app. If I, as an English-maps user look at Germany, I don't get Munich (Munchen). I don't get Florence (Firenze), I don't get India (Bhārat). There's a long-standing tradition that maps show things in the name that's local to the map user. Sometimes, over time, a name gets changed to be closer to the way it's said in the local language, so Peking became Beijing.

Also, google addressed this in a blog post from 2008, almost literally describing this situation:

"How Google determines the names for bodies of water in Google Earth ... if a ruler announced that henceforth the Pacific Ocean would be named after her mother, we would not add that placemark unless and until the name came into common usage"

Other than the ruler not being female, the body of water being a different one, and "America" not being Donald Trump's mother, this is the exact situation.

Edit: I guess technically Donald Trump is female.

Don’t forget apple

Republicans are so good at baiting liberals into useless bullshit arguments, while they plunder stuff that actually matters.

I prefer the name "golfo del gringo loco"

Save your old maps for when this shit has to be reversed in 4 years unless the voters elect another republican troglodyte.

Google also removed the ability to suggest edits to specifically the Gulf.

Guess they knew ahead of time they'd get an influx of requests to change or back.

PLEASE.DO IT

I stopped using everything Google. Fascist collaborators won't get a dime of my money, won't get my eyeballs on any of their ads, and won't get a single kilobyte of data from me to sell for profit.

I'll keep my gmail account open because all it really does is accumulate spam which probably costs them money.

Don't sue- just threaten to block some of googles services in your country and they'll come around real quick. Hit em where it hurts. Google isn't hurting for lawyers.

Funny thing - I just checked yandex maps (because I'm bored) and it still shows "gulf of mexico" on it.

Can someone just make a mod or something for g-maps to name all American names to like Spanish ones? Nuevo York, Guashintón Distrito de Columbia, that kinda stuff.

Don't even bother with a pointless lawsuit. Simply stop using Google.

Just call it the Gulf of Fuck The Environment, We're Getting Rich!

So why did google change it in Canada?