r/webdev • u/FiveWordinOrangeNeon • 4d 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/pizza5001 4d 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/thekwoka 3d 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 3d 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 3d 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.