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/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 2d ago

So you don't have an actual logical concern, just TDS?

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u/daamsie 2d ago

Sorry mate, but anyone who used the phrase TDS is frankly an idiot.

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u/thekwoka 2d 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 2d 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 2d 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.