Having worked in the mapping sector for a bit, it makes sense.
Google/Apple are not deciding what the lake is called. They are pulling data from the GNIS.
This way people in a region will see what their government decides is the correct version for their people.
Let's take this out of the heated debate.
In the most of the world and Iran (strangely we agree on this), we recognize a body of water known as the Persian Gulf. For the Arab League states, they call this the Arabian Gulf.
Is that Google being evil? Should Google decide what this is called? Or just leave it to the region to decide themselves.
What about the border of Kashmir? How should they handle that?
All well and good until we found out that Google updated the name before GNIS managed to do it. They went out of their way to score points as quickly as possible.
Why? It's an emotional subject. We can debate it heatedly without becoming irrational.
In the most of the world and Iran (strangely we agree on this), we recognize a body of water known as the Persian Gulf. For the Arab League states, they call this the Arabian Gulf. Is that Google being evil?
I have no idea. I don't have enough cultural context to make an informed decision.
On the matter of Trump's renamings, Google does have that context.
We do not need to pretend that everything is decidable by simple one-line equations. We are all humans.
In the context of what is "acceptable" for human opinions: It is OK for Google to decide to concede to the president's renamings based on their existing umbrella policy. It is also OK for people to consider Google immoral for doing so.
Both things are within that range. We need to stop pretending otherwise with these weak "technically..." arguments and over-reliance on analogies that we tend toward as engineers.
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As a Canadian, I agree this is ridiculous.
Having worked in the mapping sector for a bit, it makes sense.
Google/Apple are not deciding what the lake is called. They are pulling data from the GNIS.
This way people in a region will see what their government decides is the correct version for their people.
Let's take this out of the heated debate.
In the most of the world and Iran (strangely we agree on this), we recognize a body of water known as the Persian Gulf. For the Arab League states, they call this the Arabian Gulf.
Is that Google being evil? Should Google decide what this is called? Or just leave it to the region to decide themselves.
What about the border of Kashmir? How should they handle that?
All well and good until we found out that Google updated the name before GNIS managed to do it. They went out of their way to score points as quickly as possible.
Why? It's an emotional subject. We can debate it heatedly without becoming irrational.
I have no idea. I don't have enough cultural context to make an informed decision.
On the matter of Trump's renamings, Google does have that context.
We do not need to pretend that everything is decidable by simple one-line equations. We are all humans.
In the context of what is "acceptable" for human opinions: It is OK for Google to decide to concede to the president's renamings based on their existing umbrella policy. It is also OK for people to consider Google immoral for doing so.
Both things are within that range. We need to stop pretending otherwise with these weak "technically..." arguments and over-reliance on analogies that we tend toward as engineers.