• John@lemmy.ml
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    9 hours ago

    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.

    • DoctorNope@lemmy.world
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      3 hours ago

      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.

    • [deleted]@piefed.world
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      8 hours ago

      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.

    • Furbag@pawb.social
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      7 hours ago

      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.

      • John@lemmy.ml
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        6 hours ago

        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.

      • John@lemmy.ml
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        7 hours ago

        It is official in the eyes of the US Government. I’m simply explaining why some/most map companies will include the change.

      • kuiskaaja@lemmy.ml
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        6 hours ago

        i think that’s a bit of a rash reaction to changing the name of a lake locally

    • Greyghoster@aussie.zone
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      8 hours ago

      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.

      • John@lemmy.ml
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        7 hours ago

        We’ve got bigger things to worry about than feature naming tbh.

        • Greyghoster@aussie.zone
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          7 hours ago

          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.

          • John@lemmy.ml
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            6 hours ago

            1000% agree. And maps are absolutely political, but this is just another distraction.