Watching these corporate collaborators fall all over themselves to enact the profoundly stupid and short-sighted whims of a sodden, rotting corpse when they could just…not do that…has been one of the most surreal experiences of my life.
The sad thing is, thanks to their capture of both parties, I have no conceit they’ll actually experience any consequences for it. We have handed power to some of the least-deserving ghouls the Wharton School of Business ever squeezed out.
Hi, I work in the map industry. We generally don’t get to decide what names to use for features. We apply what the local official name is (to simplify). That’s why if you’re in country A, feature X might be named something different than if you’re in country B. You can imagine this would (and has) caused many conflicts around the world if we didn’t display the local official name. (Switch your region via VPN and you can see this in action)
If Google renamed it to Gulf of America, no Google didn’t, not really … They just inserted the new official name for that feature according to GNIS.
Mapquest isn’t changing it because an executive order doesn’t change the name outside of the US executive branch. They can easily ignore petty GNIS changes.
Google is just gargling Trump’s nuts because they want to.
Waze hasn’t either, otherwise imma be done with it all
Hate to break it to you but google owns Waze.
Well on my map its still there as OG, so until it changes I’ll use it, but always down for recommended better non-google that people contribute to pigs wastin time for speeders, mofos got everyone doin 10 under near me, highway I wanna go fast
Except it’s not official. An executive order means the executive branch has to use that name. Nobody else does.
It is official in the eyes of the US Government. I’m simply explaining why some/most map companies will include the change.
Trump is not a king, and outside of the executive branch, his executive orders have no binding power.
Google et. al. Are, last I checked, not part of the executive branch, and are under no obligation to abide by Trump renaming bodies of water.
They’re doing it because they want to. Because they know it will make Trump happy.
It’s the official GNIS name now, and is usually just piped into the maps. There aren’t people actually deciding which names to use at Google, HERE, whatever, etc … we just push sources in.
They’re doing it because they want to. Because they know it will make Trump happy.
sure, ok … guess you know more than my 20+ years experience at a digital map company that actually taught google how to make their maps.
Google deciding to continue using a dataset that has been completely captured by a megalomaniac at the head of an authoritarian regime is on them. I cannot stress enough that they do not have to use GNIS, as evidenced by all the other map apps that, y’know, don’t.
The Google Maps change does only seems to be visible for people with US IPs. But I assume that Apple Maps, Mapquest, Mapbox, Bing (TIL Bing has a map feature), etc all use GNIS to label features too, right? None of them have changed the name yet. Seems unlikely that all of them would still be out-of-sync with upstream, and let Google drink their milkshake like this.
According to this Wired article:
In fact, the map for the federal government’s Geographic Names Information System database, which informs these changes, still showed Lake Ontario as of Sunday morning, with a note that the maps are “in the process of being updated to reflect this name change.”
Sure looks to me like Google made the change before the basemaps were updated. It’s now 23:40 EDT Sunday, and GNIS still says Lake Ontario…so yeah, I think this is on them. Dear Leader told them to jump, and they rushed to show him how high they could get.
unlikely that all of them would still be out-of-sync with upstream
It’s not like we all have one live server that ingests source changes and the customers will see it immediately. There is a massively delay, release schedules, etc.
Sure looks to me like Google made the change before the basemaps were updated
But yea, you could be right on this specific point
It’s not like we all have one live server that ingests source changes and the customers will see it immediately. There is a massively delay, release schedules, etc
Good! Sounds like there’s plenty of time built in to the system for impact analysis, change management, QA, and the like, to avoid pushing unnecessary updates that end up pissing everyone off.
Who gets to determine if they’re unnecessary updates?
EDIT/Update: ‘Lake America’ is currently under discussion from our Geopolitical Policy Board.
So switch it back, all Nazis must (redacted)
i think that’s a bit of a rash reaction to changing the name of a lake locally
You are aware this is not the only thing Trump has done, right? That there is a whole context of him and his collaborators doing shit for decades which this particular decision should be considered part of.
What you say about local names is correct, however the issue is that Demented Don has just decided that this is a good way to punish Canada. It is still surprising that a president can make such a change by executive order and there is no uproar in the US.
We’ve got bigger things to worry about than feature naming tbh.
It’s just symptomatic of the destruction of social and diplomatic capital (pardon the cold calculating economic word) that this old demented fools is engaged in. His economic destruction and greed and theft is another story.
1000% agree. And maps are absolutely political, but this is just another distraction.
Google shows the renamed gulf of mexico in europe too. From memory, it initially fully renamed it and then much later started showing both. But they’re clearly not just following local gov exec policy.
Do you guys use Mt. McKinley or Denali?
I bet you Sergey was a frequent flyer to the island.
We… Voted for this?!? Whoops.
Twice!
I’m not even sure it’s collaboration for the dumb shit like this. It’s just not worth spending millions of dollars litigating over something that doesn’t actually fucking matter. Not litigating the name change itself, but whatever bullshit Trump decides to do for his temper tantrum for being ignored.
It will just be changed back eventually.
Cringe
Fuck you google
I’m Canadian and I switched to maps.here.com, a European service as it provides good transit info. We need to move away from American hegemony.
HERE Maps will include the change, I 100% guarantee it. They have Gulf of America pushed to prod servers. (switch to US vpn location and you will see it)
source: I may or may not work for them 🫠
As long as they only change it in the US, that’s fine with me. I’d still rather support the EU.
FYI… Changing it in the US only is exactly what Google is doing, just like with the Gulf.
Except I also have it as lake America and I’m in Europe.
Did you search for lake America? I’m also in Europe and replied to your other comment with pics. It defaults to lake Ontario for me.
No. I searched for Lake Ontario. That comes up with the pictures etc, and that has Lake America in backets. Then I zoomed in to it and it was just Lake America. However that was yesterday, today it is back to Ontario.
The day before I also checked it out and it was only Ontario, without even the brackets. So it was only for a day for some reason.Sounds like your country may be becoming the US soon then. Google must’ve bought early access to his tweets…
I thought they relied on open street map
HERE Maps? Absolutely not. OSM is a competitor to HERE.
How they get information about places like restaurants, shops etc?
external sources like Yelp, Trip Advisor, Localeze, FB
website doesn’t even open for me xD
i just use osmand on my phone for general navigation and my city’s public transportation app for navigating the bus system
Like I said when Zuck et al were on the inauguration stage kissing the orange ass: what’s the point of fuck you money if you never say fuck you?
Getting more fuck you money
They’re saying “fuck you” to us, not to them.
They do. They say ‘fuck you’ every day to the workers they exploit, the hungry and poor they prey upon, and to all of us when they help themselves to our personal data to sell. That’s the point, they’re bad people to the core. Billionaires have enough money to do literally anything and everything for the rest of their entire lives, and instead focus on controlling the rest of us and getting more of our money. They are parasitic scum…
For android users recommend CoMaps, or “OSMand”, both are open source and privacy focused. Both use openstreetmaps data, CoMaps just have what I think is a cleaner interface. Both have offline maps, turn-by-turn navigation and frankly a lot more customization since it’s not corporate owned. No ads, and no businesses who pay being stuffed in your eyes first when maps load.
Both are much improved since trying to ditch maps a few years ago and basic local business info wasn’t available, now it looks to be much improved and it’s a great time to jump.
Hope this helps someone.
Just downloaded both, will give them a try - thsnks for the recommendation!
Nice! Thanks
There’s also Organic Maps.
CoMaps was forked from Organic Maps. There was some drama because the Organic Maps shareholders were demanding profit or something, idk. CoMaps is like the community edition, so they aren’t beholden to any shareholders.
Ah right, i forgot.
Or mapy.cz
Mapy.cz relies on open street map, but it has advantage that you can add reviews and photos to places.
I think its the best replacement right now, but it needs more community
Google also says Jerusalem is the capital of israel despite international law and virtually every other country designating Tel Aviv as the capital.
Fuck google.
How’s the Ass of Trump looking, Google?
These are the issues one can expect when one is dependent on foreign country companies for any services, it comes with their world view. Similar if you would be using services from other countries that are interested in how their image is seen from the other side.
I personally don’t mind they can name things to what ever they want, but you as a user should always be aware of who is the owner of the platform and it’s indirect message. I do not call Germany, Deutschland or will also have an issue with Macedonia in Greece or Nepal in China.
It is just a petty thing to do that makes that orange mandarin look like a person with huge issues that many of us left at the age of 10.
Fuck Google.
I’ve been working on de-Googling for a while anyway, but this is definitely the last straw that’s gonna get me to finish the job.
Canada should announce that they’ve changed the names of all the Great Lakes to Canadian names, like Lake Toronto, and Lake Ottawa. Make sure there’s a Lake Saskatchewan, because there is no way Trump can read or pronounce it, so that will really piss him off. Maybe he’ll painfully stroke out and croak, and we can all read about it the Big Beautiful Obituary.
Nah, if they really want to get under his skin, they should rename the lakes to Lake Obama, Lake Hillary, Lake Comey, and so on.
No, they should find the most sorry thing of a mud puddle (preferably one in Patagonia or so) and call THAT Lake America.
I like the idea of Canada naming the lake after Trump personally : “Lake Inferior”.
I wish Trump decides to rename something in Europe and Google complies so another jump in degooglelization takes place there…
“NATO is a bunch of pussies! From this day forward I proclaim that the water between France and England be known as the “Strait of Ben Dover”. Get it? I’m so clever…”
“…and not many people knew there was a “B” in Ben, but it’s true…” /s
Hmm, unfortunately >99% people dont care… In Poland everything relies on us infrastructure. Government buys services from M$ or Google, when we have own european companies or it could invest in own infrastructure
I thought Google’s policy was that they deferred to the international cartographic societies decision on place names, i.e leave it alone, but apparently they’ll just give in to an international skid mark when the opportunity presents itself.
I just assumed they followed the nomenclature of whatever country they operate in.
Edit: Ah, I get it. This change is just change within the US’s Executive Branch and therefore Google doesn’t need to follow it at all. They’re just sucking MAGA penis.
Maybe before they needed to lick Trump’s taint. They would rather get on his good side than be “regulated” to death.
So everyone’s switching to foss alternatives, right?
OSM?
Spread the word, share with your friends, etc.
I recommend CoMaps on Android, (or Organic Maps, which CoMaps forked from when Organic started enshitifying)
CoMaps is awesome.
Curious for myself and the people on the thread, looks like it’s based on OSM still. What does CoMaps offer over OSMAnd?
OSM is not really a map app, it’s a collaborative geo database. You can build apps of top of it, there are many many such apps. The https://openstreetmap.org/ website isn’t really a map app and is mainly tailored for the needs of OSM contributors and editors.
CoMaps is a map app that uses OSM data, and packages it in a nice, offline-first, private, and Open Source app that is quite good and easy to use.
https://cartes.app/ is another app that uses OSM data, but works closer to your regular maps, being online-first, which has its pros and cons. Still quite private and Open Source though.
OSM is not really a map app, it’s a collaborative geo database. You can build apps of top of it, there are many many such apps. The https://openstreetmap.org/ website isn’t really a map app and is mainly tailored for the needs of OSM contributors and editors.
CoMaps is a map app that uses OSM data, and packages it in a nice, offline-first, private, and Open Source app that is quite good and easy to use.
https://cartes.app/ is another app that uses OSM data, but works closer to your regular maps, being online-first, which has its pros and cons. Still quite private and Open Source though.
I should’ve been more specific, my fault 😅 OSMAnd vs CoMaps lol, my fault
OSMAnd is really good, but it’s pretty slow with a clunky interface and an unpleasant theme. CoMaps has a very streamlined UI, a pleasant theme and very good performance.
I still keep both since OSM is more feature rich especially for elevation (important when cycling), but for day to day use CoMaps is the one I use.
Both are fully Open Source and use OSM data so I’m not worried much about them going to shit, though I’m under the impression CoMaps is non-profit more community built, while OSMAnd is a for small for-profit with still a community behind.
I wasn’t saying it was different from OSM, I was suggesting it as an OSM client.
It offers superior user experience that is almost on par with Google Maps but without being Google Maps (and some things it does better, like more detailed instructions).
It does highlight a lot of glaring issues with the OSM data itself though, be prepared for that - OSM lacks tons and tons of individual street addresses, which is very frustrating. I add them when I can but its too much on my own.
CoMaps is pretty cool, but it needs better public transit support. It’s good for driving, but doesn’t have bus schedules where I live like Google and Apple maps do.
Is it an issue where OpenStreetMaps doesnt have your public transit system’s schedule? if I recall, public transit should be something OSM supports. Or is it an issue with CoMaps/OrganicMaps not being able to read that information?
I feel like this is something that can be resolved somewhat easily once the issue is identified.
OSM?
edit: To be clear, CoMaps and OpenStreetMaps is still leagues better than Google Maps for privacy, respecting users, etc and I recommend people switch. But it’s still a community-run project which means the community needs to participate to keep it awesome.
If we read the rest of that thread they are
butnot changing the name. They are adding a tag stating it has an alternate name.Adding an alternate name in an obscure tag that is not surfaced on most renderers is not the same as changing the name. Nobody is changing the name. You will still see Lake Ontario on OSM for the foreseeable future. It’s okay, you can put your pitchfork down.
Edit: fixed typos.
I’m not sure that Google could sink any lower.
Makes sense as they once championed “alternative facts”. May as well live in an alternative reality.