Comment on Google officially changes the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America on Maps
markstos@lemmy.world 2 weeks agoFrom the article:
“When official names vary between countries, Maps users see their official local name. Everyone in the rest of the world sees both names. That applies here too,” Google said.
Nothing exceptional is happening on Google’s end. They are following their policy on names as they have before.
misk@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago
It’s demonstrably not true because Maps would be a mess if they followed this policy. Unless „vary between countries” means „vary between countries as long as one of them countries is US”.
markstos@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
What’s an example of a place with conflicting names in different countries that handled differently?
misk@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago
Recent example - Poland renamed Kaliningrad (a territory it owned briefly ages ago) to Królewiec for shits and giggles similar to what Trump did with Gulf of America thing. It shows up as Królewiec in Poland and nowhere else because why would it affect anyone else?
Older example - since Russia annexed Crimea Google Maps in those countries has reflected official borders but for the rest of the world it’s just a dotted line.
You’d probably find a lot of disputed names and borders between India/Pakistan/China where similar stuff happens.
What I’m trying to say that while Google didn’t necessarily follow their own guidelines, their actual priority was to be pragmatic, unobtrusive or invisible. This change is unexpected because it’s very much „in your face” for everyone everywhere.