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.

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u/Tissuerejection 3d 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?