The U.S. Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) has formally changed the name for "Lake Ontario" to "Lake America" in the United States. Since we update Google Maps to reflect name changes in official government sources, which is GNIS for the U.S., people using Maps in the U.S. will see "Lake America," those in Canada will continue to see "Lake Ontario," and those outside of the U.S. and Canada will see both names. These updates follow our long-standing policy for bodies of water with names that vary from country to country, and are starting to roll out now.
Google is taking the heat for this because they have a fast engineering team that reacted within 48 hours. Based on the "Gulf of America, née Mexico" debacle, the other companies will follow suit when their engineering teams finish the code reviews: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_14172#Technolo...
They're also taking the heat because it's a decision, and decisions carry moral weight. They're following their policy, but it's a policy they've chosen, not one that's legally compelled. It has implications, and they are free to reexamine and refine it. Not doing so is also a choice.
Couldn’t we, the rest of the world, continue to see Lake Ontario, as it was before? It’s a very stupid thing to do and I guess most of us, if asked, would be on team Canada..
And yet Google decided to have the whole planet (except Canada) see Lake America. The sucking up to Trump knows no bounds with Google and Apple (who will again follow suit as they did with Gulf of America)
"those outside of the U.S. and Canada will see both names"
Start swimming in Lake America, end up in Lake Ontario. Funnily enough, Ontario is an indigenous word that predates both American and Canadian governments.
> Ontario is a term thought to have Indigenous origins, either Ontarí:io, a Huron (Wyandot) word meaning "great lake", or possibly skanadario, which means "beautiful water" or "sparkling water" in the Iroquoian languages. Ontario has about 250,000 freshwater lakes. The first mention of the name Ontario was in 1641, when "Ontario" was used to describe the land on the north shore of the easternmost part of the Great Lakes. It was adopted as the official name of the new province at Confederation in 1867.
Page title is now "Google Maps Changes Lake Ontario to Lake America" which is probably more accurate than "Google Maps Renames Lake Ontario to Lake America" (which could've been the title earlier.
Trump renamed the lake. Google just updated the label.
The Google blog post is more useful: https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/products/maps/gni...
Google is taking the heat for this because they have a fast engineering team that reacted within 48 hours. Based on the "Gulf of America, née Mexico" debacle, the other companies will follow suit when their engineering teams finish the code reviews: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_14172#Technolo...They're also taking the heat because it's a decision, and decisions carry moral weight. They're following their policy, but it's a policy they've chosen, not one that's legally compelled. It has implications, and they are free to reexamine and refine it. Not doing so is also a choice.
[delayed]
None of that GNIS US shit explains why people in the free world have to read "those outside of the U.S. and Canada will see both names"
Couldn’t we, the rest of the world, continue to see Lake Ontario, as it was before? It’s a very stupid thing to do and I guess most of us, if asked, would be on team Canada..
And yet Google decided to have the whole planet (except Canada) see Lake America. The sucking up to Trump knows no bounds with Google and Apple (who will again follow suit as they did with Gulf of America)
"those outside of the U.S. and Canada will see both names"
Start swimming in Lake America, end up in Lake Ontario. Funnily enough, Ontario is an indigenous word that predates both American and Canadian governments.
> Ontario is a term thought to have Indigenous origins, either Ontarí:io, a Huron (Wyandot) word meaning "great lake", or possibly skanadario, which means "beautiful water" or "sparkling water" in the Iroquoian languages. Ontario has about 250,000 freshwater lakes. The first mention of the name Ontario was in 1641, when "Ontario" was used to describe the land on the north shore of the easternmost part of the Great Lakes. It was adopted as the official name of the new province at Confederation in 1867.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontario
I see it as "Lake Ontario (Lake America)" in the UK. This is so petty there must be a word for it in some language somewhere in the world.
In Australia, we call it bullshit.
https://archive.is/hllsk
Why not call it Lake Trump, hang a tarp blocking our view to it, and be done with it.
The American dream reduced to an idiocracy.
Incredibly embarrassing for Google.
That's a fun take. As a non-american, I see it as embarrassing for Americans, like most of what you let Trump do. Google is merely complying.
Page title is now "Google Maps Changes Lake Ontario to Lake America" which is probably more accurate than "Google Maps Renames Lake Ontario to Lake America" (which could've been the title earlier.
Trump renamed the lake. Google just updated the label.
This is the dumbest thing. And we’ve had a lot of dumb things.
What a joke. Ha!