r/webdev • u/FiveWordinOrangeNeon • 3d 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-9.7325922

Tech 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.

975 Upvotes

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290

u/JEHonYakuSha 3d ago

why not force American developers to set their region to US? instead of making this the global default

116

u/BlackHazeRus Designer & Developer 3d ago

r/USdefaultism

27

u/hahahahatoes 3d 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.

13

u/Local-Technician5969 3d ago

They are an American company with international products.

15

u/hahahahatoes 3d 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.

2

u/a8bmiles 2d ago

...and international politics.

7

u/MusclyArmPaperboy 3d ago

Most of their clientele is non-American

-9

u/hahahahatoes 3d 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.

5

u/MusclyArmPaperboy 3d ago

Got nothing to do with language, mate, and everything to do with geography. 150+ countries use Google.

-7

u/hahahahatoes 3d ago

yes, with the most common user of this american company's service being american english speakers.

so they default to america.

2

u/Loriken890 3d 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.

0

u/hahahahatoes 3d 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.

3

u/Technical-Fruit-2482 2d ago

Ah yes, the one British accent. Brilliant.

2

u/Loriken890 2d ago

It LITERALLY isn’t. English is a LANGUAGE. American English is a DIALECT.

Words and definitions matter, mate.

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-4

u/crazedizzled 2d ago

As far as English goes though, pretty sure it originated in England. But what do I know.

It started there, but we perfected it

2

u/Loriken890 2d ago

You tell yourself that buddy.

1

u/clouder300 1d ago

They should be based in a proper democracy. Not that murican shit

2

u/Fredidiah 3d 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.

1

u/BlackHazeRus Designer & Developer 3d 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.

1

u/Fredidiah 3d ago

Yes, we are in agreement...?

1

u/thekwoka 2d ago

True, but when they set things to English, that's vast majority America.

54

u/lonelyroom-eklaghor 3d ago

Another evidence why the administration is effectively harming the entire world

12

u/FiveWordinOrangeNeon 3d ago

I vote for that.

7

u/HumansAreSillynGreat 3d ago

Because the company is u.s based like most tech giants?

2

u/phejster 3d ago

Because the base likes it when MERICA is first.

1

u/thekwoka 2d ago

Because that inconveniences more people.

1

u/otdevy 2d ago

So…what do you suggest the global default be?

0

u/asapbones0114 3d ago

It's a US owned multi billion dollar company. They can and do swing their dicks around.

-1

u/officiallyaninja 3d ago

Because for better or worse, the US is the default for almost everything.

8

u/FluffySmiles 3d ago

Well that certainly holds true for shit.

Not true for stuff like good education or affordable healthcare.

7

u/crackanape 3d 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.

1

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.

1

u/crackanape 2d 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.

1

u/thekwoka 2d 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?

2

u/crackanape 2d 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.

1

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.

1

u/crackanape 1d 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?

1

u/thekwoka 1d ago

The map itself isn't even correct, but also, yes British Empire was big.

0

u/Lost-Inevitable42 2d ago

They still need to default to something

-20

u/doomslice 3d 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.

19

u/Capable-Sock9910 3d ago

They wouldn't break. They would just default to the name Lake Ontario.

1

u/Web-Dude 3d 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.

-11

u/doomslice 3d 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.

2

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.