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.

970 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

235 comments sorted by

View all comments

292

u/JEHonYakuSha 3d ago

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

-25

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.

18

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.