The U.S. Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) has formally changed the name for "Lake Ontario" to "Lake America" in the United States. Since we update Google Maps to reflect name changes in official government sources, which is GNIS for the U.S., people using Maps in the U.S. will see "Lake America," those in Canada will continue to see "Lake Ontario," and those outside of the U.S. and Canada will see both names. These updates follow our long-standing policy for bodies of water with names that vary from country to country, and are starting to roll out now.
Google is taking the heat for this because they have a fast engineering team that reacted within 48 hours. Based on the "Gulf of America, née Mexico" debacle, the other companies will follow suit when their engineering teams finish the code reviews: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_14172#Technolo...
They're also taking the heat because it's a decision, and decisions carry moral weight. They're following their policy, but it's a policy they've chosen, not one that's legally compelled. It has implications, and they are free to reexamine and refine it. Not doing so is also a choice.
It has been obvious since Google pulled from China and got replaced by even more censored alternatives that corporations have close to zero weight against the arm of the state, and taking the moral high ground against an established government accomplishes close to nothing.
There's no "moral weight" to throw around. Until Google spins up a well-regulated militia, they do what the guys with guns tell them to do.
No, they're taking the heat because they VERY selectively acted on this as quickly as possible while other issues they are more than happy to sit on. Don't confuse this for anything other than kissing the ring.
In particular, their claim that they do this for all bodies of water with disputed names is a lie. They do it for some, but the Heilong River is called simply the "Amur River" on my map with no notice whatsoever of the longstanding Chinese name.
Perhaps they should not have reacted so quickly? The only US state which borders Lake Ontario rejects the name change, and US states are sovereign, so it’s not so obvious to me that the name change is official. But now it’s too late. Moving fast to comply with authoritarian mandates lends them a lot of power by undercutting anyone’s efforts to object.
You kind of need to be more specific about what you mean by sovereign. Federal pre-emption exists[0]. There are lots of ways in which the federal government can enforce their will (constitutionally!) on states.
But it's super complicated, and in this particular case does the state have some special right to name the body of water it's adjacent to that pre-empts the federal government? I dont know. Probably not, but I think the argument would need to be more explicit about what that right is rather than just claiming states are sovereign.
Agreed! It's a complicated argument that would have required detailed discussion. But Google found it more politically convenient to bow to Trump and make it a fait accompli. Thus Trump makes an incremental step further towards his dreams of dictatorship. What will Google do when Trump tells them to rename a city, I wonder?
Actually, that by itself isn't as stupid as it seems. Half of Lake Ontario is in the USA. Suppose that the USA actually had a legitimate, long-standing, respected name for the lake, different from Lake Ontario. It would be a good idea to include that name in maps. It's not simply a USA-centric exonym for a foreign lake; the lake is in the USA! The users of a map deserve to know that the lake is called something else by people on the southern shore.
But Munich, Nuremberg, the Baltic Sea etc... are not shown with both their English vs local names either when setting the Google Maps language to English despite the German names being completely different (and the Baltic Sea would need at least three names: it is also called the 'Eastern Sea' and the 'Western Sea'), and in the Sorbian minority region of Germany, the place names are also not printed in both German and Sorbian.
The issue is not one of showing a native name plus an English-language exonym. For the time being, the lake has two native, English-language names. Neither name is an exonym. Lake Ontario is not a Canadian lake being called by a different name by the USA.
Now suppose Tramp decreed that The Great Bear Lake in Canada should be called Star-Spangled Lake, effectively making that the USA's exonym for a place in Canada. And then suppose Google showed that name to visitors outside the USA, along side The Great Bear Lake. That would then be like (or even worse than) showing English-languge exonyms for German places to someone whose language is not indicated as English.
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The Google blog post is more useful: https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/products/maps/gni...
Google is taking the heat for this because they have a fast engineering team that reacted within 48 hours. Based on the "Gulf of America, née Mexico" debacle, the other companies will follow suit when their engineering teams finish the code reviews: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_14172#Technolo...They're also taking the heat because it's a decision, and decisions carry moral weight. They're following their policy, but it's a policy they've chosen, not one that's legally compelled. It has implications, and they are free to reexamine and refine it. Not doing so is also a choice.
Do you think Google maps made a moral choice to eg show different names for the Sea of Japan in Russia and Korea?
It has been obvious since Google pulled from China and got replaced by even more censored alternatives that corporations have close to zero weight against the arm of the state, and taking the moral high ground against an established government accomplishes close to nothing.
There's no "moral weight" to throw around. Until Google spins up a well-regulated militia, they do what the guys with guns tell them to do.
To their credit, they dropped the "Don't be evil" slogan many years ago /s
No, they're taking the heat because they VERY selectively acted on this as quickly as possible while other issues they are more than happy to sit on. Don't confuse this for anything other than kissing the ring.
None of that GNIS US shit explains why people in the free world have to read "those outside of the U.S. and Canada will see both names"
In particular, their claim that they do this for all bodies of water with disputed names is a lie. They do it for some, but the Heilong River is called simply the "Amur River" on my map with no notice whatsoever of the longstanding Chinese name.
Perhaps they should not have reacted so quickly? The only US state which borders Lake Ontario rejects the name change, and US states are sovereign, so it’s not so obvious to me that the name change is official. But now it’s too late. Moving fast to comply with authoritarian mandates lends them a lot of power by undercutting anyone’s efforts to object.
You kind of need to be more specific about what you mean by sovereign. Federal pre-emption exists[0]. There are lots of ways in which the federal government can enforce their will (constitutionally!) on states.
But it's super complicated, and in this particular case does the state have some special right to name the body of water it's adjacent to that pre-empts the federal government? I dont know. Probably not, but I think the argument would need to be more explicit about what that right is rather than just claiming states are sovereign.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_preemption
Agreed! It's a complicated argument that would have required detailed discussion. But Google found it more politically convenient to bow to Trump and make it a fait accompli. Thus Trump makes an incremental step further towards his dreams of dictatorship. What will Google do when Trump tells them to rename a city, I wonder?
The rest of the world seeing both names is such a stupid decision. Please spare us from Trumps childish temper tantrums.
Actually, that by itself isn't as stupid as it seems. Half of Lake Ontario is in the USA. Suppose that the USA actually had a legitimate, long-standing, respected name for the lake, different from Lake Ontario. It would be a good idea to include that name in maps. It's not simply a USA-centric exonym for a foreign lake; the lake is in the USA! The users of a map deserve to know that the lake is called something else by people on the southern shore.
But Munich, Nuremberg, the Baltic Sea etc... are not shown with both their English vs local names either when setting the Google Maps language to English despite the German names being completely different (and the Baltic Sea would need at least three names: it is also called the 'Eastern Sea' and the 'Western Sea'), and in the Sorbian minority region of Germany, the place names are also not printed in both German and Sorbian.
The issue is not one of showing a native name plus an English-language exonym. For the time being, the lake has two native, English-language names. Neither name is an exonym. Lake Ontario is not a Canadian lake being called by a different name by the USA.
Now suppose Tramp decreed that The Great Bear Lake in Canada should be called Star-Spangled Lake, effectively making that the USA's exonym for a place in Canada. And then suppose Google showed that name to visitors outside the USA, along side The Great Bear Lake. That would then be like (or even worse than) showing English-languge exonyms for German places to someone whose language is not indicated as English.