The president of Mexico on Thursday expressed hope that Google “reconsiders” its decision to change its online maps to reflect U.S. President Donald Trump’s claim that he has the authority to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico.
Shortly after taking office, Trump issued an executive order announcing he was changing the name of the body of water to the Gulf of America.
For U.S. users of Google Maps, the gulf was listed as the Gulf of America as of Thursday. Google, whose CEO attended Trump’s inauguration along with other tech moguls, said last month it has “a long-standing practice of applying name changes when they have been updated in official government sources.”
But Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum warned Thursday that her government “will file a civil suit” against Google if it does not revert back to labeling the international body of water the Gulf of Mexico.
Republicans are so good at baiting liberals into useless bullshit arguments, while they plunder stuff that actually matters.
I want to know how many of the people here defending Google’s decision would be okay with Google labeling Taiwan as “Taiwan (Chinese Taipei)” for people in Taiwan and also the rest of the world.
I prefer the name “golfo del gringo loco”
or we keep american shit inside america. fuck googlemaps, apple and all other shitty US corporations. see, tump will die some day and be forgotten, but people will remember what apple and google did. next time you see someone work for alphabet…spit them in the face. next time an american buys a burger, you spit on it. etc. it is not about actual harm as america is killing itself anyway atm. my bingo card says if trump wins twice, there shall also be two pandemics. maybe protest the egg prices a bit more before using that muri-brain to do sth. against it. americans are just stupid.
Oh, the cartel leader criminal is throwing a fit. Lmao
Ive been already boycotting google, amazon, facebook, reddit. Yall need to get on it
it really sucks when you realise that virtually everything is a US company… and yet everything they sell is made in fucking China
My phone is a Pixel on Google Fi, and I have a YouTube premium account. I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me :( lol
Yeah its actually insane how far Googles reach has gotten
Nah. I’ll start boycotting google when there are useful alternatives. Amazon, facebook, reddit - no problem.
Google search - fine, I can get by with DDG or Yandex. Gmail - sure, whatever. Maps? Organic Maps (and other openstreetmaps front-ends) works alright for getting your bearings, but it’s a far cry from useful for finding businesses, and terrible for navigation. Waze used to be the only viable alternative, but ever since Google bought them, it’s hard to justify a full boycott without massively inconveniencing myself.
Same for meta as a whole. Facebook and Instagram, sure, no need. But living without whatsapp is simply impossible in some countries, where it’s the de-facto standard for communication, and even used as the only means of contact with government agencies.
We did it with Lemmy. It CAN be done!
If you disapprove of internet companies caving to authoritarian politics, I have bad news for you about Yandex
Fr, I try, but it’s really not possible to get away from these companies.
Nobody wants signal, nobody wants mastodon, nobody wants or frankly can use openstreetmaps. Alternatives are just not good enough
Alternatives are just not good enough
And to no fault of their own of course. They just aren’t working with the same resources as Google and the others.
I think it’s more a question of stepping down our level of comfort at this point. Can we live without a particular service that Google provides, when there are no alternatives with feature parity? Or can we live with the fact that some of the features aren’t working as well or missing, and use the alternatives anyway?
Yeah, I still find it impressive how good mastodon and lemmy are given the limitations.
For sure, and that is possible for personal things, but for social things it’s almost impossible to live without some features.
People don’t want to step down their level of comfort when it comes to WhatsApp (where I live people don’t use SMS because they’re limited), so you’re forced to either keep your contacts (which includes family) or move to signal/threema/session/matrix/etc. But have no one to talk to
Yeah its true unfortunately
Well, the continent was named America, not the Mexico continent. So the name Gulf of America just sounds right. It’s not like the name changed to the Gulf of US.
Don’t even bother with a pointless lawsuit. Simply stop using Google.
Nah, they’re a megacorp, you gotta hurt them where it counts - in their bottom line. Make them use their super expensive lawyers to defend this shit. Honestly more people/entities should do this. Even pro se, these corporate lawyers cost these companies literally hundreds of thousands of dollars to go into court. Just imagine how much you could cost them if everyone started suing them for any little thing. Even a response to a lawsuit requires a lawyer, which requires time and effort.
Its literally the only thing they care about - money. Strongly worded letters and protests aren’t enough. They can ignore those.
Google is worth more than Mexico. A frivolous lawsuit, which is what this would be, will hurt Mexico more.
have we (the human race) ever been to this point before? where corporations are big enough to absorb whole countries and there’s pretty much nobody who’ll stand up to them?
The East India Company is the first example that comes to mind. I’m sure others.
I really don’t think we are living through unprecedented times, unfortunately. People have sucked for as long as we’ve existed.
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.
in their jurisdiction (Mexico) it is actually the “Gulf of Mexico” in Google Maps, they don’t get the “Gulf of America” name.
I’m in Europe and for me it says “Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America)”. 🥴
Cancel all government contracts with google
And for the love of god do not switch over to another American company, or any company, go FOSS and decentralized
God I hope this happens, it will be absolutely hilarious when the GCP services on which MX infraestructure for telecommunications, research and development, industry, transportation, banking, agriculture, logistics and health is built up, crashes burning to the ground.
Uninstalled 👍
It’s a US company following US policy as it’s a contract holder for the US Government they’re compelled to follow US policy. Whether anyone likes it or not, at least for right now, US policy is that the Gulf of Mexico for all intents and purposes is the Gulf of America.
President Sheinbaum can sue Google all she wants, but there’s no court that’s going to find that a US company complying with US policy is breaking the law.
It’s a US company following US policy as it’s a contract holder for the US Government they’re compelled to follow US policy. Whether anyone likes it or not, at least for right now, US policy is that the Gulf of Mexico for all intents and purposes is the Gulf of America.
We have a bunch of amendments…go look at the first.
I think you KNOW it’s because Pichai was there and is part of that club now.
So you are gonna have to provide a source explaining how the president using an executive order to rename international water is “policy” that Google must follow.
They you’ll have to explain why I, as a Canadian, have to see this stupid renaming in parentheses.
If the US truely doesn’t have a system beyond “once the president orders it, it’s renamed.” That’s their problem but I don’t give a fuck what they call things and I don’t know why google thinks I should.
So you are gonna have to provide a source explaining how the president using an executive order to rename international water is “policy” that Google must follow.
It’s the executive branch. It would be the same as if Congress did the same, and passed a law saying “The Gulf of Mexico is now the Gulf of America.” There’s no source required, it’s literally how the US Government works, but if you want one; American University Law Review (2009) - The Limits of Executive Power:
The President has broad discretion in choosing how to exercise these implied powers. Second, these implied powers are not plenary in nature. They are subject to three basic limitations: (1) the President may not, without congressional authorization, use these powers to change domestic law or create or alter existing legal obligations; (2) these powers are subject to regulation by Congress; and (3) in the event of a conflict between the exercise of these powers and congressional legislation, the latter prevails.
There’s no federal law establishing the name of the Gulf of Mexico, so there’s no conflict with the first limitation. No one in Congress is willing to stop him, so no conflict with the second. And there’s no conflict with existing congressional legislation, so there’s no conflict with the third. So therefore the executive order is within the power of the executive branch.
Because Google is a US company and operates within the US, it has to follow US policy. The President just changed US policy to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico… So they either have to comply or be sued by the executive for not following US policy–which they’ll lose.
They you’ll have to explain why I, as a Canadian, have to see this stupid renaming in parentheses.
Because again, Google is a US company. So if you want to see Gulf of Mexico again, use any map provider that isn’t from a US company.
If the US truely doesn’t have a system beyond “once the president orders it, it’s renamed.”
That’s an extreme oversimplification of what’s going on here. But it kinda outlines how important it is to elect good people, huh?
So you are gonna have to provide a source explaining how the president using an executive order to rename international water is “policy” that Google must follow.
Exactly
You could be wrong. While possibly justified on Google’s part, Mexico will most likely sue its Mexican affiliate, and if Google wishes to operate in Mexico, it will have to comply with orders from Mexican courts. See twitter and Brazil for similar case.
That’s fully within the right of Mexico as a country, but that has nothing to do with anything that I’ve said here.
Going forward, the official US policy (because of this executive order) is that it’s the Gulf of America. No amount of suing Google will change that.
Actually the executive order only renames the parts that the US controls, and they don’t control the entire gulf
It doesn’t “rename” anything. It means the official US position is that the Gulf of Mexico doesn’t exist and instead it’s the Gulf of America. It’s not forcing anyone to call it that other than for official purposes–like in Governmental memos and official US documents–least of all foreign Governments or their people.
The US doesn’t own the Gulf. We can’t unilaterally change the name. But when the US Government officially refers to the Gulf, it will now be called the Gulf of America. That’s what the executive order did.
Where will the lawsuit be filed in?
Mexican courts? Good luck getting an American company to comply.
US Courts, well… surely no judge would be biased right? glances at the composition of the US Supreme court
International Courts? Lol like they have any power at all.
Reminds me of The Expanse:
“Earth Court? Mars Court? What Inner court gives Belters justice?”
Mexican courts? Good luck getting an American company to comply.
Why not? Brazilian courts ordered Twitter to ban some people, Twitter refused, court treated to jail Brazilian Twitter legal representatives, Twitter closed their Brazilian office to shield itself from Brazilian courts, Brazilian courts ordered ISPs to block Twitter because they had no legal representatives on the country, after a couple of weeks without Brazilian access Twitter bow down, rehired their legal representatives and complied with Brazilian court orders.
Don’t see why Mexican courts couldn’t do the same with Google Maps.
By “comply”, I mean like getting them to revert the map rename. Kicking them out and blocking them isn’t really getting them to “comply”
By contrast, if the US government wanted Google to do something, they could storm their headquarters and get the government tech people to go in the servers and change it (Edit: after obtaining a court order to do so, obviously).
if the US government wanted Google to do something, they could storm their headquarters and get the government tech people to go in the servers and change it.
Bwahahahahahahainhalehahahahahahaa
Thanks, I needed that. Whatever movies you’re watching are terrible.
Forcing your way into Google to have “government techs” change something is NCIS level ridiculous. Conceivably they might get a court order to “force” Google to change. Funnily enough, the US and Mexico have the exact same levers to make a company do what they want. The US has more power to push those levers though.
We’ll see who’s laughing after the government breaks through all of Google’s firewalls and hacks their mainframe!
They’re gonna need a lot of cyber-tape if they want any chance of stopping all the data from spilling through their firewalls.
And who knows how google would handle a cyber-nuke.Don’t forget two people typing on one keyboard
Mexico is a big country, Google has shareholders who demand line goes up, people use maps to advertise (“map pack” “local SEO” and brand tie-ins)…
yeah, we’d start using their spineless nature for good tbh
In order to do business in Mexico, they must agree to Mexican laws.
In order to do business in Canada, they must follow Canadian laws.
In order to do business in the US, they must
follow US lawskiss the ring.This isn’t the first time big tech has had to tackle something like this. Usually it’s with disputed territory. In that case, each region gets to see what it demands to see, while presenting something different to the rest of the world.
The suit should be by an American cartography company over the proper US Board on Geographic Names’s official process not being followed for the name change.
I’m actually submitting a name change to the board through the official process. But since the USGS added a bit to the process saying that resetablishing historical names isn’t a reason for a name change, I’m going to recommend it be changed to “The Gulf,” since it meets all criteria for a name change - most importantly that it be a name in common usage by locals. Lots of people refer to it as “The Gulf,” while “Gulf of America” isn’t in common usage.
The most we can do outside of lawsuits is at least try to take the “America” part away.
I’m going to recommend it be changed to “The Gulf,” since it meets all criteria for a name change - most importantly that it be a name in common usage by locals.
So now when I refer to “The Gulf States”, I’m typically referring to Alabama and Florida and Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
the proper US Board on Geographic Names’s official process not being followed for the name change.
This is the theme of this administration. Doing whatever they want with no regard for process. This gulf of “America” nonsense truly feels like the actions of a believed king or emperor. A frivolous decree that doesn’t change anything, doesn’t materially affect anything, just an opportunity to exercise their believed power.
Let’s name it “the Gulf of America’s pollution”
Reminds me of: Miss Universe… Miss planet… Miss International…
First, what laws are violated? Doubt international law touches this, US law maybe?
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.
Just access GMaps through your VPN through Mexico, and your wildest dreams can come true.
Guayinton or Guallinton fits better
Just call it the Gulf of Fuck The Environment, We’re Getting Rich!
Sponsored by BP
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