Google determines the names for bodies of water in Google Earth (2008)
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They violated their own policy with the gulf then.
The common usage name, of course, is "Gulf of Fragile Masculinity".
Investment in product quality, "Don't be evil", everything that set a company apart and allowed it to rise, it lasts only as long as it is preserved in a way that resists decay.
Is there anything left of the rowboat? I'm at the point where I am actively trying to shut Google out of my life to the degree that it is possible. And yet it is still not Microsoft. I catch a glimmer of the old google in a product release now and then.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/07/08/sergey-...
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/09/29/politics/sergey-brin-cali...
Although there is also no definition of "common usage". A new name might already qualify if the local government adjacent to this landmark announces to only use this new name from now on.
Reading the article, I assume this would cause the new name to be immediately shown in brackets next to the old name, or am I missing something?
Common usage is defined in the article as the widespread name used by the local people to refer to it.
"Under this policy, the English Google Earth client displays the primary, common, local name(s) given to a body of water by the sovereign nations that border it. If all bordering countries agree on the name, then the common single name is displayed (e.g. "Caribbean Sea" in English, "Mar Caribe" in Spanish, etc.). But if different countries dispute the proper name for a body of water, our policy is to display both names, with each label placed closer to the country or countries that use it."
Which basically means "multiple names until all bordering countries agree on the same name", if I'm not mistaken
In the situation with the Gulf, it's unambiguously true that the "primary, common, local" name used in the US by English-speaking Americans is "Gulf of Mexico", but they decided to adhere to an artificial name change declared by a political figure, whose authority to make that "official" only extends to a single branch of a single level of government.
And that's my point. It depends on how "primary" or "common" is defined, the article has no definition of it. Who gets to decide that, Google?
The easy (and predictable) cop-out is to follow a governments definition of what is "the expected primary and common name", and then show that name in brackets.
The only restriction this "definition" seems to set is that your country needs to be adjacent to the landmark to define its name, so "a ruler" cannot decide to rename e.g. Australia unless he is either "the ruler" of Australia or of a country adjacent to it.
And we're back to square one.
> By saying "primary", we aim to include names of dominant use, rather than having to add every conceivable local nickname or variation. By saying "common", we mean to include names which are in widespread daily use, rather than giving immediate recognition to any arbitrary governmental re-naming. In other words, if a ruler announced that henceforth the Pacific Ocean would be named after her mother, we would not add that placemark unless and until the name came into common usage.
If Google doesn't want to try to discern the proper "primary, local, common" names on their own, they do worse than just using Wikipedia's names and call it a day.
If the nutso president of Turkmenistan decided one day that the Caspian Sea's real name was the Turkmen Sea, there's absolutely no way that Google Maps would rename it on their maps. The reason they renamed it in this case is not because "well, the government said so, so we have no choice!". It's (obviously!) done to not piss of Trump, and pissing off Trump would be bad for their business. They can hide behind lawyerly arguing all they want, but that is the real reason.
Anyway I don't think google should be the one choosing the names they call water bodies. They just need to use the official names for the IPs countries, and show lake america, gulf of america, ocean america, asian america, european america and african america if Trump makes it official, but only for the US IPs.
As a user I want the map names I know, not whatever BS some egomaniac politician announced yesterday.
Maybe not quite the same as in this case, the entity who names the square actually owns the square, which isn't the case in the gulf of mexico naming situation. But there is some grey area I think.
I would maybe even welcome that approach at this stage, just to demonstrate the absurdity of those decisions.
They could actively encourage also other countries to rename all foreign landmarks as they please, to fast-track a separate "international naming" convention so people can again communicate across borders...
The how is operative, I think, since it changes the title from being about the process of how Google determines a name when it's there, to being about Google acting as some kind of rogue despot that goes around naming bodies of water.
> But if different countries dispute the proper name for a body of water, our policy is to display both names, with each label placed closer to the country or countries that use it.
Clearly that policy has changed since 2008. Not surprising, since that's before they decided to officially be evil.
I'm located south of the equator.
The expansion of the internet advertising industry, addiction algorithms via YouTube and/or other dark patterns, and more were pretty evil from the start. If you need a slogan to remind you to not be evil, maybe you shouldn’t be anywhere near power. It’s one of those tells in advertising - if you have to tell me you are something you probably aren’t whatever you are claiming to be.
Renaming Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America, and renaming Lake Ontario to Lake America just aren’t in the same room in terms of “evil” things. Annoying perhaps? Sure. Evil? Not. A. Chance.
Nobody really cares about this stuff in day-to-day life besides people who desire to be outraged as a way of entertaining themselves or mask over some other personal deficiency they have.
What countries call it the South China Sea? What does France call the English Channel?
Had this occurred 100 years ago we wouldn’t even be talking about it today.
Same thing basically with the English Channel. It's just the English Channel. I don't want to see a bunch of different names for it. If the French want Google to show it as La Manche for French people that makes sense.
I guess they've changed their minds since 2008... Their display of "Gulf of America" without "Gulf of Mexico" and "Lake America" without "Lake Ontario" is at odds with their declared policy.
Then you look at the current day with the "Gulf of America" which fails to be primary, common, or local, and just get disappointed.
I've heard it called Michael Jackson Syndrome.
Lake Ontario (Lake America)
does it mean that the complete name change has been introduced only locally, in US?
> How Google determines the names for bodies of water in Google Earth
But the HN link is
> Google determines the names for bodies of water in Google Earth
Is this one of those cases where HN automatically changes the submission name? Because removing the `how` really changes the meaning here.
I don't like these magical (unexpected) solutions.
Yeah, right, until a wannabe despot comes in and demands Google come lick its boots. In which case Google immediately complies with zero objection.
Also: Why is this comment downvoted?
It seems a clearer case of following a similar policy (though for land, not water), since Denali was already the primary, common, and local name for the mountain in Alaska, just not across the US as a whole [2]. I am not aware of the Gulf of America or Lake America as common names; the Gulf of America was occasionally a joke, though.
It's also not clear to me that it's fair to say "the Democrats renamed some mountain," since it was partly a clear response to an Alaskan request, made by both the Republican and Democratic Senators of Alaska [3], although the officials who made the final decision were all Democrats.
[0] https://searchengineland.com/mount-mckinley-denali-google-bi... [1] https://www.doi.gov/node/17570 [2] https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CRPT-113srpt93/html/CRPT... [3] https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/senate-bill/155
And you’re getting downvoted because, as per the above, it’s an irrelevant question.
But I’ll indulge you just a bit more. The principle here is not “renaming things is bad!” The principle is that indulging an authoritarian who’s trying to unilaterally rename territory his country doesn’t own is bad, particularly when he’s doing so in a fit of pique (Lake Ontario).
As you may or may not be aware (I wasn’t), the Alaskan state legislature passed a bill in 1975 requesting that the mountain be renamed. Trump didn’t even try to get Congress to pass any bills before renaming things.
Hope this all helps clarify and gives you some reason to rethink the MAGA propaganda that tries to equate Denali and the Gulf of Mexico.
This seems like a question that should be able to factually answer with something like, "they changed it and did not include both names" or "they changed it but included both names". I don't see how it's a troll to wonder about that.
There exists no mechanism in the US for the president to force a private company to change the name of anything.
They did this to curry favor with the regime. It is naked sycophancy that shows exactly where the leadership of this company stands.
This sounds to me like for all users it should display both names. Perhaps to US users it displays "Gulf of America (Gulf of Mexico)" and everywhere else it displays "Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America)", although the literal text suggests it should say "Gulf of Mexico" in an area of the map closest to Mexico and "Gulf of America" in an area of the map closest to the US.
Just because the US has decided to smear faeces on their walls doesn't mean we all need to admire it.