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submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by Cat@ponder.cat to c/technology@lemmy.world

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.

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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?"

[-] driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br 42 points 1 week ago

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.

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[-] Nollij@sopuli.xyz 19 points 1 week ago

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 laws~~ kiss 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.

[-] chiliedogg@lemmy.world 11 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

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.

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[-] SendMePhotos@lemmy.world 49 points 1 week ago

Again, this is one of the dumbest fucking wastes of money I've ever seen. Waste of labor from the top down. Waste of resources. This is purely a pride move. It's the gulf of Mexico and always has been. There are American songs about the gulf of Mexico. It's history. I have said it before and I'll say it again, I fucking hate this timeline. This shit is wild. This stuff now days is a mockery of our world.

[-] Mog_fanatic@lemmy.world 16 points 1 week ago

Look we're wasting our hard earned tax payer money on crazy fraudulent things like science, education, weather, feeding children, helping the poor, medicine... Dumb things like that. And you're gonna tell me that changing the name of a body of water to include the greatest God damn country in America is a waste? Next thing you know you're gonna stand there and tell me that poor people should be able to afford a hospital visit.

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[-] Embargo@lemm.ee 49 points 1 week ago

Less threatening... More doing.

The U.S. dictatorship are just doing and they're slowly tearing apart OUR planet.

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[-] MellowYellow13@lemmy.world 39 points 1 week ago

Ive been already boycotting google, amazon, facebook, reddit. Yall need to get on it

[-] LMurch@thelemmy.club 16 points 1 week ago

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

[-] MellowYellow13@lemmy.world 11 points 1 week ago

Yeah its actually insane how far Googles reach has gotten

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[-] AJ1@lemmy.ca 12 points 1 week ago

it really sucks when you realise that virtually everything is a US company... and yet everything they sell is made in fucking China

[-] leadore@lemmy.world 38 points 1 week ago

Whenever I see Gulf of America mentioned, in my head it sounds like "This is America" in the Childish Gambino song.

[-] Birch@sh.itjust.works 24 points 1 week ago

Gulf of America, don't catch you shippin now, look where I'm fishin now, potus be trippin yo (woo), gulf of america

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[-] redsparks2025@lemmy.world 38 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

The word "America" is not reserved for the USA alone and belongs to the entire Americas: North America, Central America, South America. As such if they want to rename the Gulf of Mexico then it should be the Gulf of North America of which both the USA and Mexico are a part of and share borders around that body of water.

Furthermore the word "America" isn't an English word but the German bastardization of an Italian word. Specifically the word "America" was coined by Martin Waldseemüller a German cartographer who named the Americas after Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci who explored the new continents for Spain and Portugal. So I guess the Gulf of North Amerigo is more accurate. LOL.

Amerigo Vespucci - History Cartoon ~ Innovative History ~ YouTube.

In any case, if this is the big orange blow-fish's attempt to dis on Mexico then it's pretty petty much like everything he does to massage his massive ego.

[-] fogelmensch@lemmy.world 27 points 1 week ago

So it's the gulf of Germany. Got it. Ü

[-] CitizenKong@lemmy.world 14 points 1 week ago
[-] ALoafOfBread@lemmy.ml 14 points 1 week ago
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[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 32 points 1 week ago

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.

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[-] merc@sh.itjust.works 31 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

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.

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[-] rauls4@lemm.ee 27 points 1 week ago

Don’t forget apple

[-] el_twitto@lemmy.world 22 points 1 week ago

PLEASE.DO IT

[-] tigolbitties@sh.itjust.works 22 points 1 week ago

I prefer the name "golfo del gringo loco"

[-] Furbag@lemmy.world 20 points 1 week ago

I stopped using everything Google. Fascist collaborators won't get a dime of my money, won't get my eyeballs on any of their ads, and won't get a single kilobyte of data from me to sell for profit.

I'll keep my gmail account open because all it really does is accumulate spam which probably costs them money.

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[-] yggstyle@lemmy.world 19 points 1 week ago

Don't sue- just threaten to block some of googles services in your country and they'll come around real quick. Hit em where it hurts. Google isn't hurting for lawyers.

[-] echodot@feddit.uk 17 points 1 week ago

You have to hit them in the wallet. Every time Trump does or says anything about tariffs, just starting increasing tariffs on all Tesla products.

We can't hit Trump directly but we can hit his little friends quite easily.

Musk will have an absolute meltdown on twitter of course, but if you just ignore him he'll give up. He's already shown that he is prepared to back down if he's actually facing financial penalties.

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[-] DozensOfDonner@mander.xyz 16 points 1 week ago

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.

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[-] ohellidk@sh.itjust.works 16 points 1 week ago

Funny thing - I just checked yandex maps (because I'm bored) and it still shows "gulf of mexico" on it.

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[-] Gammelfisch@lemmy.world 16 points 1 week ago

Don't even bother with a pointless lawsuit. Simply stop using Google.

[-] Elshar@lemmy.world 16 points 1 week ago

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.

[-] yournamehere@lemm.ee 15 points 1 week ago

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.

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[-] Blackmist@feddit.uk 14 points 1 week ago

Just call it the Gulf of Fuck The Environment, We're Getting Rich!

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[-] PhAzE@lemmy.ca 13 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

So why did google change it in Canada?

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this post was submitted on 13 Feb 2025
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