Technology

"The Trump administration has passed a resolution saying that Mexico will now be called 'America South' and Canada 'America North'. Google said it will follow the government's lead in changing the names on it's maps app."

So many important issues affecting America right now ..... and the country and its government is fixated and pouring so much energy, manpower, knowledge, education, experience and capability into .... renaming something on a map that no really gives a shit about.

Pussies

I have a tiny penis. But I know a guy who has my real penis. I call his penis my penis. Trust me guys, its big!

Why is anyone using twitter anyway? Bring back blog post press releases

WTF?

I want off this ride.

For what it's worth, this is how Google maps has always worked. Use Google maps in China and you'll notice that borders are in different places, HK, ~~Tibet~~ Bhutan, the whole China sea, those are within China's borders. It's the same with Russia, crimea is just part of Russia if you use Google maps in Russia. If your country recognizes different borders or different names for places, that's what Google shows you in your country. It's basically either that or they can't operate in that country, so they don't really have a choice if they want to exist in that region.

It's my understanding that the executive does not have the authority to unilaterally change official geographic names. As of my writing this, the name “change” has NOT been adopted by the United States government. Congress granted that authority to the US Board of Geographic Names in 1890. Unless accepted by the US BoGN, it changes nothing. I suppose Congress could rename it if they passed a bill that the president signed into law overriding that authority for that specific case, but until they did so, it’s not official.

Here is the link to the US Geographic Names Information system page showing the current official name of the Gulf of Mexico: https://edits.nationalmap.gov/apps/gaz-domestic/public/search/names/558730. Note the list of accepted variant names, which still doesn’t include “Gulf of America”.

Google are saying here that they will only change it on maps if it's made official by the US Government, which has not happened yet. That's why they haven't made any change yet, and won't unless Trump gets the US BoGN to do his bidding.

Edit: well that didn't take long. They already made made the change.

Reminds me a lot of after 9/11 when they tried to change French Fries to Freedom fries. That stuck about as well as water on teflon.

So why didn't they change Crimea to be part of Russia, if that's always been the longstanding policy, Google?

(Note; I'm not suggesting it is a part of Russia; just pointing out the hypocrisy of Google since Trump claiming ownership of the Gulf of Mexico is the same thing as Russia claiming ownership of Crimea.)

Google; we're still calling it Twitter you think we're gonna start calling it Gulf of America just because a doofus says so?

It's only the Gulf of America in the United States lol

It's giving big "freedom fries" energy. Makes sense when you think about how much of a wet dream the post-9/11 circle jerk was (is) for conservatives. They're trying to recreate the same 2002 Republican, plastic-patriot distraction machine again.

I am so glad that I switched our app over to OSM last year.

Wait... so... this was not a joke? They're serious?

Mexico should rename Baja California to Península Pacífica.

I'll keep an eye out for a firefox plugin to change it back.