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matt_heimer 9 hours ago

This isn't really on Google. Countries disagree on how things should be named. Google sources the US centric view from the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS).

Blame the person causing the GNIS updates.

isleyaardvark 9 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Blame the person at Google who chose to source from GNIS, without edits.

SahAssar 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

So you prefer google to be the arbiter of what are official names within each country?

I think the US administration name change is childish, dumb and short-sighted, but if the authority of geographical names in an area designates it as such then I think it should show as such within maps within that area, at least as long as the clarification is readily shown. The same already happens for things like "Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas)" or "Myanmar (Burma)".

I guess the question comes down to: do you want google to show the map that your current locality decides to be their interpretation or do you want google to be the arbiter of what a global real map is? Or is there a third alternative that I'm not aware of? (BTW the UN is not a solution to arbiter every countries and languages terms for every country/area/city/lake/ocean/etc.)

matt_heimer 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It was a very reasonable decision when it was made around 2008.

Do you really expect a US based company to go to legal war with the US government over something like this? Because there would 100% be repercussions it they did.

kashunstva 8 hours ago | parent [-]

Is there a legal requirement that non-governmental entities source their mapping data from official U.S. government sources?

kps 7 hours ago | parent [-]

I don't think that matters with the current administration.

derbOac 2 hours ago | parent [-]

I think that's part of what is frustrating to so many people? Google isn't a small business, and has the legal resources to at least fight back if they were challenged by the administration. Any such challenge would likely fall apart in trial, but even if it didn't Google would have at least challenged the absurdity of it.

kashunstva 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The person responsible for the GNIS corruption and the leadership of Google are in essence conjoined twins. The tech oligarchs are not going to make decisions based on interests that aren’t aligned directly with their personal enrichment; and the GNIS Corrupter-in-Chief wields such personal interests rather effectively.

teeray 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> This isn't really on Google

Yes, because it’s so agonizingly difficult to `s/Lake America/Lake Ontario/g` in a data feed. Truly the engineering feat of our time.

7 hours ago | parent | next [-]
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hopojp 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

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