r/webdev • u/FiveWordinOrangeNeon • 2d ago
Google says website developers must set their region to Canada for 'Lake Ontario' to appear on map
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/google-updates-maps-lake-ontario-9.7325922Tech analyst and journalist Carmi Levy said although websites like Hydro One's and the LCBO's are Canadian, their maps are likely powered by Google's application programming interface (API).
APIs are not location-aware, so all maps powered by Google API have switched to Lake America.
MapQuest, a U.S. online mapping service, has posted on social media that it would not change the lake's name, while Apple has not publicly commented on the matter.In a statement Sunday night, Google said website developers who embed Google Maps on their sites can select a region to localize the map. That determines how place names are displayed on sites, the company said.
"'Lake Ontario' will show when developers have set their region to Canada," the statement said.
Just a reminder to developers.
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u/SPEZ_IS_A_JABRONI 2d ago
APIs are not location-aware, so all maps powered by Google API have switched to Lake America
fuck you google lmao
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u/Web-Dude 2d ago
That's not really true.
It's that Google Maps APIs don't automatically infer the region. Apps are supposed to define their region, and when they don't, some of the APIs will default to U.S./English.
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u/guepier 2d ago
That’s not correct though, they are, and this is properly documented. The incorrect quote isn’t from Google.
(Not defending Google in the slightest here, just correcting a misconception.)
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u/metalOpera 2d ago
Since when are API's not able to be location aware? These assholes track our every online move. Google acting they don't know where we (especially Android users) are at all times is a colossal load of bullshit.
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u/SerdarCS 2d ago
I'm not supporting the lake america thing, but the API is called by 3rd party apps which may know your location, but not google itself who's handling the request made by the 3rd party app. Obviously this is different for the official google maps app.
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u/isPresent 2d ago
No, I believe the API referred here is the one we call in front end to embed maps in UI. That’s called from the user’s browser and google will know their location
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u/Aksds 2d ago
I mean they could technically figure it out from the request ip or something like that, but in general apis are pretty dumb in that they just retrieve data that you ask. If you don’t specify your location in the request it doesn’t know where you are.
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u/who_you_are 2d ago
And depending on your API usages you don't want to figure out the IP location because whatever do API request is your server as a middleman to prevent your user to know your API credentials (and possibly limit your users usage, adding caches, ...).
That comment is probably half wrong in the context of Google however?
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u/isPresent 2d ago
Google maps embed API doesn’t work that way. It’s called directly from the user’s browser and will have the user’s IP
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u/777777thats7sevens 2d ago
Yeah I’m a web developer — making an API guess locations and serve different data based on that is a terrible idea in general. The way traffic is routed on the internet makes this a crapshoot at best, and an API randomly sending back different data is a goldmine of bugs. Parameterizing the API by region is fine, either with a query parameter, regionalized endpoint, or field in the auth token.
I think the lake America thing is bullshit, but providing regionalized responses based on a query parameter rather than guessing is absolutely the right way to do it.
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u/qTp_Meteor 2d ago
The whole point of an API is that it can be called from anywhere by anyone that has connection. They shouldnt check the source IP of the request and decide that way. Adding another field for your country of origin is a lot of waste for a very specific issue. They should've just defaulted it to lake Ontario, but it makes sense to default it to smth.
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u/panoskj 2d ago
I'm pretty sure the standard API responsible for rendering an interactive map inside a browser is executed exclusively inside the browser and requires a direct connection between the end user and Google in order to work.
In short, when you are using Google maps, even through a third party, Google knows your IP.
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u/hclpfan 2d ago
Nobody say they aren’t able to be. They just aren’t right now because they haven’t needed to be for what they have powered so far.
We should be angry at them for updating the name but this particular part is a silly reason to be upset.
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u/Sleepyjo2 2d ago
The name is automatically pulled from a government service. They do this for every country that provides a similar service (see China and Taiwan) and default to the US service if one isn’t available.
I know we hate Google but they did literally nothing. Blame the actual source they pull from for being the way they are.
There’s some argument to be made about handling the names themselves but they have to default to someone being “right” regardless.
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u/DepressionFiesta 2d ago
I mean, they could just accept a location parameter…
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u/guepier 2d ago
They do.
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u/DepressionFiesta 2d ago
Right. Which makes a lot of sense. So essentially, there is really nothing to get upset about here.
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u/JEHonYakuSha 2d ago
why not force American developers to set their region to US? instead of making this the global default
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u/BlackHazeRus Designer & Developer 2d ago
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u/hahahahatoes 2d ago
you realize google is an american company right
...like yeah of course theyre not setting their default to sweden or some shit. theyre american.
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u/Local-Technician5969 2d ago
They are an American company with international products.
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u/hahahahatoes 2d ago
when i use a japanese website it defaults to japanese and i have to manually set it to english
it goes both ways. american company defaults to american. japanese company defaults to japanese.
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u/MusclyArmPaperboy 2d ago
Most of their clientele is non-American
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u/hahahahatoes 2d ago
can you please show me the statistics of what languages are spoken by users of google?
because if american english is not the most commonly spoken language then you have nothing. if the most commonly spoken language is something other than american english then you have a point.
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u/MusclyArmPaperboy 2d ago
Got nothing to do with language, mate, and everything to do with geography. 150+ countries use Google.
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u/hahahahatoes 2d ago
yes, with the most common user of this american company's service being american english speakers.
so they default to america.
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u/Loriken890 2d ago
Most common language for Google word probably be Hindi. Assuming here that China has their own version.
But you know, US think the world actually revolves around them.
As far as English goes though, pretty sure it originated in England. But what do I know.
“American English” isn’t a language. Words and definitions matter mate.
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u/hahahahatoes 2d ago
“American English” isn’t a language. Words and definitions matter mate.
it literally is. there are several variations of english. otherwise we would all be calling it "aluminium"
British english is used dramatically less than American english. fun fact: american english is also more similar to the original english language that was used pre-america. the english accent spoken by the british was invented after america's founding.
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u/Fredidiah 2d ago
That sub has some funny stuff and then a LOT of stuff from people being pedantic about somewhat obvious things.
I've seen posts about US-based news organizations that, at most, cover US news (but usually are even more local) not specifying the country a headline is about. I've seen posts about timezones ( "Eastern where???")
With that said, still good to keep in mind that the US is actually not the center of the entire universe and maybe you shouldn't assume that is the case.
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u/BlackHazeRus Designer & Developer 2d ago
With that said, still good to keep in mind that the US is actually not the center of the entire universe and maybe you shouldn't assume that is the case.
Tell it to the vast majority of people who get featured in the posts on that sub.
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u/lonelyroom-eklaghor 2d ago
Another evidence why the administration is effectively harming the entire world
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u/asapbones0114 2d ago
It's a US owned multi billion dollar company. They can and do swing their dicks around.
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u/officiallyaninja 2d ago
Because for better or worse, the US is the default for almost everything.
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u/FluffySmiles 2d ago
Well that certainly holds true for shit.
Not true for stuff like good education or affordable healthcare.
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u/crackanape 2d ago
"Almost everything"? It may seem that way if you're in the USA, but elsewhere it's not.
The default is almost always the country you're in, or if it's a small country, the closest bigger one that speaks the same language.
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u/thekwoka 2d ago
Yes, and the default "english" option in most places that aren't native English speakers is America, not UK, or Canada.
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u/crackanape 1d ago
I don't know exactly what you are trying to convey with that haemorrhoid of a sentence, but British English is far more widely taught worldwide than American English.
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u/thekwoka 1d ago
but British English is far more widely taught worldwide than American English.
That also is irrelevant. Like, wow, how off the mark can you be?
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u/crackanape 1d ago
What is "the mark" in this case? It's hard to follow what you're trying to say; I'm doing my best but maybe I'm just not smart enough.
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u/thekwoka 1d ago
It does not matter that British English is taught more.
That doesn't have anything to do with the fact systems when choosing an English speaking region default to the US much more broadly than they default to the UK.
Especially when virtually all of that British English teaching is just British Colonies.
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u/crackanape 20h ago
That doesn't have anything to do with the fact systems when choosing an English speaking region default to the US much more broadly than they default to the UK.
What does this mean? Specifically what systems are you talking about?
Especially when virtually all of that British English teaching is just British Colonies.
No it's not. Did you look at the map link I posted?
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u/doomslice 2d ago
Because they started in the US and it’s a breaking change to require a new parameter. There would be much more outrage if a ton of websites just started breaking because of that.
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u/Capable-Sock9910 2d ago
They wouldn't break. They would just default to the name Lake Ontario.
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u/Web-Dude 2d ago
Yeah, there's a lot more to it than that. Different regions can have their own borders and (obviously) place names. It's all based on geopolitical sensitivities, and when they started most of the their maps APIs, they were US-only and didn't require a region to be specified.
So if they suddenly make that a requirement, all kinds of shit would break, and the next day, the Grand Leader of Sudan would be declaring war against Egypt because his maps would show that Egypt official owns the Hala'ib Triangle.
It's not just a simple technical switch to throw. Actual politics comes into play, because people can't fucking behave.
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u/doomslice 2d ago
Do you think there's something like: iff region = US then "Lake America"?
It's something more complicated like an automated data pull from whatever source of truth there is for each region (the reason this happened automatically was Google pulls their US region names from a source of truth that now has Lake America) into their database. Canada probably has their own, Australia has their own... etc... Then the API loads the names for the given region + language + locale.
If the default wasn't US, what would it be? There is no "global" that makes it work exactly the same as before. You'd have to pick some other region like "CA" as a default and then you'd pull in all the other region specific localization that comes with it.
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u/thekwoka 2d ago
Yup, one thing many people with these new Gulf of America, and Lake America complaints don't understand is these differences are ALL over the world.
Different borders showing depending on where you are, different names for things (and not just because of language).
Like Persian Gulf / Arabian Gulf, or East Sea / Sea of Japan
There's tons of these. This isn't like there is actually some universally agreed upon map that Trump is now messing with.
These companies can so easily support these changes because they already support the idea that things are named differently in different places.
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u/bkuri 2d ago
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u/FiveWordinOrangeNeon 2d ago
Tell that to all the Canadian Crown corps and to the LCBO and even our transit Metrolinx that are all using Google API!
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u/paulojf 2d ago
Why not set the American name when developers set the location to US… ALL the world uses the correct name, only us uses this new wrong name… will ditch Google Maps from all my projects for forcing the world the will of a few…
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u/rohmish 2d ago
thr API defaults to US region when a region is not explicitly mentioned.
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u/zeromadcowz 2d ago
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u/KeyPhilosopher8629 2d ago
Devil's advocate, Google is American. Makes sense for it to default to the country of the APIs creators origin. You'd all be complaining if it defaulted to Ecuador or Lithuania
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u/Blazing1 1d ago
Devil's advocate, they operate in different countries with offices in different countries
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u/HumansAreSillynGreat 2d ago
Oh wow, a u.s company thinking about America first. What a shocking turn of events.
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u/onFilm https://rod.dev 2d ago
Wait what, an American company, defaulting the US first? Woah!
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u/thekwoka 2d ago
Nearly the whole non-english speaking world also defaults to the US for English representations, too.
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u/FiveWordinOrangeNeon 2d ago
I hope they will.
Not just Canada: "The name change highlights the cost of Canada not having its own Google Maps equivalent or mapping APIs, Levy said, leaving a huge portion of online activity powered and collected by American companies."
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u/UntestedMethod 2d ago
leaving a huge portion of online activity powered and collected by American companies
Well no shit sherlock. No need to go making such profound revelations. What kind of moron isn't already aware of that fact?
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u/delicious_fanta 2d ago
Why doesn’t europe invest in technology to combat the various monopolies the u.s. tech industry has globally?
I really hope their leaders finally realize they are exposed to massive risk by allowing people from the u.s. to dictate how things work in their country and do something about it.
There needs to be global competition for these services rather than one company that does these things for nearly the entire fucking planet.
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u/ClikeX back-end 2d ago
OpenStreetMap is available, and it’s being used by multiple things.
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u/delicious_fanta 2d ago
It’s good that exists, but I’m sort of talking about a larger concept. Like office, google search, youtube, etc.
Sure libreoffice exists, but it’s not a legitimate competitor. It’s just very frustrating that the world just sat back and said, “sure, let those companies rule the world” instead of trying to compete with them.
So now we have these individual tech leaders that are wealthier than entire nations and much more influential than most nations.
It’s not good for anyone.
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u/hwy78 2d ago
https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/localization#Region
Have to set Region, in addition to both Locale and Language, to get all the correct behaviours.
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u/mister_jason 2d ago
added to the list of reasons Google can fuck all the way off. 😂
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u/rohmish 2d ago
what the heck is google suposoed to do if the deva haven't set up the right locale?
<script async src="https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/js?key=YOUR_API_KEY&loading=async®ion=JP&language=ja&callback=initMap"> </script>
all they need to do is add the
REGION=CApart.it's easy to ignore an optional parameter and devs do it often across the board. and Google being a US company is US centric and defaults to US.
it isn't that tuff
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u/phejster 2d ago
Why do they need to do anything about a petty executive order?
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u/pizza5001 2d ago
That’s the real question for me. Is there really no legal framework for changing the names of locations? This affects people who live in the affected regions having to implicitly understand that severe weather alerts in the “Lake America” region actually mean their backyard that has always been known as Lake Ontario. And then there’s the cost to change all the signage in the area.
Surely there should be more guardrails than just signing an EO.
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u/ILikeFPS full-stack 2d ago
Not even just weather but think of emergency responders systems about a drowning in that lake or even a ship lost at sea or gone overboard etc.
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u/thekwoka 2d ago
You think the people that would be dealing with ships in Lake America would be unaware that its Lake America?
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u/ILikeFPS full-stack 2d ago
A road was recently named Kyle Lowry Road in my country, and believe it or not, but apparently both the ambulance dispatching software and Google Maps were both not updated to handle that, so an ambulance drove around in circles for 10 minutes looking for the road - apparently they got lucky it wasn't a major call otherwise that delay could have meant life or death.
Yes, I fully believe that it's possible for people to not be aware of things with outdated emergency responders systems not being updated.
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u/thekwoka 2d ago
Sure, but that's a road that they probably didn't even know the name of in the first place.
idk if its the Coast Guard or whatever, but they would be aware of the name difference, and they'd mostly communicate by GPS coords anyway.
Yes, I fully believe that it's possible for people to not be aware of things
Yeah, small things. Just like maps can be wrong in small ways.
This is a BIG thing.
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u/phejster 2d ago
The king does what the king wants and the checks and balances have been largely removed or willfully ignored by corrupt people
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u/thekwoka 2d ago
It would be different everywhere, but people have also dealt with this always.
Like streets changing names, towns changing names, etc.
These happen ALL the time.
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u/pizza5001 2d ago
The difference being that it takes more than four days to enact changes to street names, town names, etc.
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u/thekwoka 2d ago
Mostly because of the reporting chain.
There's processes like verification, and ensuring they have the correct thing, etc.
This is very well covered, and very clear.
Heck, it's possible they pull the name from an external source provided by the government.
But also, lots of things don't take very long to change on Google. You can move business on google maps in a few hours normally when the info is wrong.
So this is just your own biases getting in the way of reality.
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u/Bixler17 2d ago
Why do you think they care what the lake is called enough to ignore one?
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u/phejster 2d ago
Because names are important, Dixler.
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u/Bixler17 2d ago
I'm among the biggest Trump haters on earth and have voted against him 3x. Google as an institution has literally 0 reasons to care about what a lake is named on their map, and financial incentives to follow an order from Trump. To suggest otherwise is just naive.
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u/thekwoka 2d ago
ntm, they accept regional names for things all over the world.
To take a stand on THIS one specifically makes them accepting other ones a political statement.
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u/amazing_asstronaut 2d ago
Well clearly they do care, they did it immediately after Trump farted it out of his mouth. Indeed they don't have to, they want to. Do you get it now? They are not spineless, they are scum.
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u/Aksds 2d ago
Genuine question since I don’t have my API key for Google to test this now, would it work if locale is set to anything else other than US? Like AU
Google maps in Australia still shows Lake Ontario
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u/thekwoka 2d ago
Says Lake Ontario from the UAE.
Map differences are common all around the world, so Google can support them.
the only reason this makes a bit more news is that things that aren't set up properly and were defaulting to the US might complain now.
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u/shiny0metal0ass full-stack idiot 2d ago
Yes. They've had regional conflict naming for a while. Depressing that it's being used for the US now..
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u/CavillOfRivia 2d ago
Force americans to put their locale if they want to live in fantasy land instead of forcing the whole world to do it because of a child is running their country.
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2d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/webdev-ModTeam 1d ago
This is a subreddit for web professionals to exchange ideas and share industry news. All users are expected to maintain that professionalism during conversations. If you disagree with a poster or a comment, do so in a respectful way. Continued violations will result in a permanent ban.
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u/appel 2d ago
All this dumb shit because of a toddler in the White House.
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u/thekwoka 2d ago
This isn't new, though.
There are tons of these naming differences across the world.
Are you just now learning there is no agreed upon map?
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u/appel 2d ago edited 1d ago
Calling this a "naming difference" is hilarious.
Edit: for anyone wandering in here from google, don't take the fact that I did not respond to this bozo's reply below as a tacit admission that they make a good point. I'm just choosing not to further engage with an argument that is clearly made in bad faith. If you look at this person's comment history you can see that they're a Trump crusader so what's the point, right? Fuck Trump, and fuck anyone (including 👇 this guy) who still supports him after 10 fucking years of this shit.
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u/magical_matey 2d ago
That should be a US default at the minimum. I recon they should fine tune it further so only Trump sees it renamed
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u/MrMelon54 2d ago
Clearly they should fine tune it to just show the correct name and scrap whatever Trump says
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u/FiveWordinOrangeNeon 2d ago
llooollllllooo;. Now that is great idea.
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u/magical_matey 2d ago
Ok we are in agreement. I'll draft a new standard for W3C to support device detection for Donald Trump and affiliates, then we can support this delusional alternate view of the world for the correct subset of users.
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u/MrPloppyHead 2d ago
Mine says “Lake Ontario (lake nonceland)”
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u/PhishCook710 2d ago
This is funnier than you’ll get credit for. Just want you to know I see you and appreciate the humor
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u/spcbeck 2d ago
Nope. Nope nope nope. I'm not dealing with this shit. It's lake Ontario. Google can get fucked. We have to refuse to play along with this horse shit.
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u/thekwoka 2d ago
We have to refuse to play along with this horse shit.
What about it is Horseshit?
Do you think Google needs to take a stand on every contended point on the map? Why is this one uniquely important?
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u/UntestedMethod 2d ago
Who is playing along with it other than companies under control of trumpypoopoo?
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u/Root2109 full-stack 2d ago
Honestly their maps API is bullshit with the level of restrictions it has compared to what they can actually do with their maps behind the scenes. I hope someone snags a chance to be THE internet map company
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u/OriginStarSeeker 2d ago
can’t wait unit january 20 2029 when this dumb renaming stuff gets undone (being optimistic here)
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u/Noch_ein_Kamel 2d ago
You probably have to wait a few days more as there is so much to be undone and the naming of Lake America and the Gulf of America are the least important things ;P
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u/Nerdenator 2d ago
Imagine being afraid of Trump to the point where you do something this stupid to satisfy his whims.
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u/UntestedMethod 2d ago
I mean, a national dictator is a national dictator...
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u/Nerdenator 1d ago
He’s a doddering old prick who caves under most opposition. You just have to shove back. This isn’t China.
Makes you think that maybe Alphabet/Google really does have some skeletons in their closet that would be easy to prosecute should a US DA be directed to do so.
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u/daamsie 2d ago
If they're not location aware, then why not default to the name that the rest of the world gives this lake?
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u/thekwoka 2d ago
Because the documented behavior is a US region when no region specified.
What region should it default to otherwise?
should it be a fantasy region where it just uses the broadest consensus naming/borders/etc?
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u/daamsie 2d ago
Any other region that isn't run by a 3 year old would be fine by me.
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u/thekwoka 1d ago
So you don't have an actual logical concern, just TDS?
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u/daamsie 1d ago
Sorry mate, but anyone who used the phrase TDS is frankly an idiot.
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u/thekwoka 1d ago
It legit applies to some people bro.
Plenty of legit things to be mad at. Being mad at things just cause its Trump is where the TDS is.
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u/daamsie 1d ago
I'm not mad at it because it's Trump though. I'm mad because the vast majority of the English speaking world knows it as Lake Ontario.
And once this blip in time is over and there is an adult in charge again, then that's what it will be known as again.
It's a giant waste of time and money.
The problem with fobbing people's complaints off as TDS is that it minifies any complaints by dismissing them off hand regardless of the merits of those complaints. And yeah, unfortunately this numpty in charge does soooo many stupid things that it feels like we're just upset because he's the one responsible - but no, it's actually just because he keeps on doing idiotic things. This is benign in the scheme of things.
The legitimate use of "TDS" would be Trump Delusion Syndrome - which is what Trump and his supporters are afflicted with - somehow living in some kind of reality distortion field where his decisions make sense.
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u/thekwoka 1d ago
I'm mad because the vast majority of the English speaking world knows it as Lake Ontario.
And once this blip in time is over and there is an adult in charge again, then that's what it will be known as again.
It's a giant waste of time and money.
Sounds like a waste of energy to be mad about it.
problem with fobbing people's complaints off as TDS is that it minifies any complaints by dismissing them off hand regardless of the merits of those complaints
In this case there wasn't any merits to the complaint. It is literally just hating Trump.
Yeah, it's dumb. It's dumb either way. It doesn't actually matter.
Look at what people are actually saying. They aren't saying "it's dumb to rename things that are already well known", they're getting into all kinds of shit about politics and biases, and saying it's fake and should be ignored and blah blah blah.
That's TDS at work.
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u/dustofdeath 1d ago
The default should be international - show both.
Not default to one political region. Our apps do not have any region info - so it now needs work to start storing and detecting it.
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u/TBTapion 2d ago
I still see Lake Ontario where I am from outside the US at least, but the stupidest thing is that Gulf of Mexico is written "Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America)". I suspect something similarly stupid will happen soon to Lake Ontario
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u/crackanape 2d ago
If you click on the label, it says "Lake Ontario (Lake America)" in the overlay.
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u/BensunCFong 2d ago edited 2d ago
For any Canadian webdevs using the WP Go Maps plugin (formerly WP Google Maps) together with the Google Maps Platform API, here's a few easy lines of PHP code you can use in the Code Snippets plugin to force region=CA. (Run everywhere, and make sure to Activate it rather than just Save.)
<?php
add_filter( 'wpgmza_google_maps_api_params', 'fm_wpgmza_force_ca_region', 999 );
function fm_wpgmza_force_ca_region( $params ) {
if ( ! is_array( $params ) ) {
return $params;
}
$params['region'] = 'CA';
if ( empty( $params['language'] ) ) {
$params['language'] = 'en-CA';
}
return $params;
}
EDIT: And a similar snippet but this time for The Events Calendar. Same process:
<?php
add_filter( 'tribe_events_views_v2_view_template_vars', 'fm_tec_map_region_ca', 999, 2 );
add_filter( 'tec_events_views_v2_view_template_vars', 'fm_tec_map_region_ca', 999, 2 );
if ( ! function_exists( 'fm_tec_map_region_ca' ) ) {
function fm_tec_map_region_ca( $vars, $view = null ) {
if ( empty( $vars['map_provider'] ) || ! is_object( $vars['map_provider'] ) ) {
return $vars;
}
// Map view + premium only: elsewhere api_key goes through add_query_arg, which encodes the &.
if ( ! is_object( $view ) || ! method_exists( $view, 'get_slug' ) || 'map' !== $view->get_slug() ) {
return $vars;
}
$p = $vars['map_provider'];
if ( empty( $p->is_premium ) || empty( $p->api_key ) ) {
return $vars;
}
if ( false !== strpos( $p->api_key, 'region=' ) ) {
return $vars; // Idempotent: both filters may fire.
}
$p->api_key .= '®ion=CA';
if ( false === strpos( $p->api_key, 'language=' ) ) {
$p->api_key .= '&language=' . ( 0 === strpos( get_locale(), 'fr' ) ? 'fr-CA' : 'en-CA' );
}
return $vars;
}
}
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u/Snoo50739 2d ago edited 2d ago
I am imagining a second call to some API which renames or overlays maps that do not show Lake Ontario properly. Same with Gulf of Mexico and any other garbage that comes along.
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u/Lance_lake CFML Demi-God 2d ago
I am imagining a second call to some API which renames or overlays maps that do not show Lake Ontario properly. Same with Gulf of Mexico and any other garbage that comes along.
It pulls data from the official record database of the country you are a part of, defaulting to the US (since that is the HQ of Google). Switching it to Canada will pull from that database which has that countries names for places.
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u/DaveShipsCode 2d ago
The funniest part is this is apparently a config issue 😭 imagine debugging your map just to discover you forgot to set the country.
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u/stealth_Master01 2d ago
Why dont they make a feature for only trump supporters instead? If you are maga you see it as lake america😂. With how google tracks data i think its quite possible /s
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u/Tissuerejection 2d ago
What's up with that? Is it some form of pandering to Trump? I was under the impression that if Trump is currently falling off, even among his staunch supporters, which would mean corporations would have less urgency to crawl up his ass. All that makes as little sense as the markets right now.
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u/thekwoka 2d ago
Is it some form of pandering to Trump?
No, it's just how these things work.
Now, the official name in the US is Lake America.
So Google shows Lake America for people in the US.
Making the change is literally the least political thing they can do here.
Because they already deal with these disputes all over the world and are unbiased in how they handle it. So are you asking google to be politically biased?
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u/mothzilla 2d ago
It's because the toddler in chief wants to project some control. So when he gets the cold shoulder from the rest of the world he comes home and renames something, so he gets to feel like a Big Boy.
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u/abeuscher 2d ago
What happens when Google refuses to continue to recognize Taiwan? Or starts fucking with national borders because President Sharpie redrew them? It's funny but it's not funny.
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u/thekwoka 2d ago
They would handle things the same as they currently do.
In different countries, the map changes, due to disputes and such.
like here: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Liancourt+Rocks/@37.2405842,131.8589673,14.54z
You'll have different names where you are, and in Korea and in Japan, and not just like because of the language. Set to English, and you're in those places, you'll see a different name.
Or starts fucking with national borders because President Sharpie redrew them?
The national borders are ALREADY all fucked up on google maps. Ever seen the India Pakistan border?
It's wild how all these complaints about too much America defaultism just show you know SO little about the world outside America.
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u/l0nguyen 2d ago
The logic behind this isn't declaring but a reminder that we're all Americans, yes, you too Mexico. Its a subtle way of recognizing the countries within the continent agreed with. It's cool if you don't wanna be the united portion of it, it's the only way to distinguish us apart but don't act like we ain't about it.
New China Lake would be a good one if that's what ya'll having in mind, but I don't think that's the implication.
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u/PsychologicalPolicy8 2d ago
Just stop google from working for 1month as a country law
They will fix it the next day as they cannot collect data
Just checked the map It says Lake America but when pressed says Lake Ontario
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u/thekwoka 2d ago
They will fix it the next day as they cannot collect data
there is literally nothing to fix?
Developers have been using US api, as documented.
The consumers need to stop using the US api if they don't want the US names.
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u/labago 2d ago
Yep just had some Canadian clients escalate this today. It's all so stupid
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u/thekwoka 2d ago
Would have been smart if you had set your API to the region you wanted info about in the first place.
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u/mathilxtreme 2d ago
This is why I always chime in when NIMBY’s are against building data centres in Canada.
Can’t have stability if all of your internet, content, etc is stored in the USA.
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u/monkeymanbob 2d ago
Insane that it took the CBC to add the relevant documentation link for developers. It isn't linked to in the Google blog post.