They’re always coming up with new and interesting ways to show how much they suck.
Incredible that anyone wants to work for such Pscho corporations. They must be incredibly ignorant outside their job-function - I hope…
I didn’t believe you so I checked and yep, they actually fucking did it.
I’m just going to play devil’s advocate because it was essentially mandated that they change it. What does google say outside of the US though? If they changed it for Canadians or non-US, then absolutely they deserve all the pitchforks. If it’s just in US, well, we shouldn’t be mad at them for this one.
Can executive orders force private companies to change how they name something? It sounds like a First Amendment issue.
It’s an executive order, no business has to follow it.
They’re picking their battles. They could go against this, but what would they win? Mild PR from users? They have a lot more to lose. I have no love for google but this was never going to be a fight they were going to make.
They could go against this, but what would they win?
Accuracy. Literally the #1 thing I value in maps. Changing the name tells me that they care about political appeasement more than accuracy.
It would be a solid PR move to ignore the orange pedophile’s tantrums, but all of silicon valley is just another head of the same grotesque chimera that is the US ruling class.
Eh I don’t think it would. The vast majority of American’s don’t care, or eyeroll. The blame right now isn’t on google, it’s on the one who signed the order. Those who do care are a very small minority. So maybe Google gets a bit of PR? But they also piss off the white house, and valiant or not we’ve seen how petty they can be there.
European here just checked it still says Ontario on mine. Checked gmaps on android and ios as well as Apple Maps, all say Ontario here.
Thanks for checking! Yup makes sense. In that case I see it purely as they flipped it in the US, it’s not their fight to have.
Really Bud?Its well known that Google Maps shows different names/borders depending on where the user accesses it from
Wrong.
Fuck Google.

If it’s true, it’s probably geolocked to only the US seeing it.
I’m from the US but moved to Sweden a year ago. It’s changed for me when I look at it. So maybe it’s not specifically geolocjed but has to do with where my account was set up, or some localization setting somewhere?
IIRC they did this with the Gulf of Mexico too

I see Gulf of America in parentheses. You know, like a participation trophy.
Possibly, but that doesn’t look like a maps compass rose I’ve ever seen.
Could be for Android or something.
Here’s what I see on iOS in Australia

It is Android.

Still says Lake Ontario for me, on Android, in Google Maps. I’m in Europe

2 hours later and they’ve fully renamed it.
It’s still Ontario in Germany (Android).
Guaranteed is. This is not new to Google, they have disputed territories, disputed names, they have gone through this before. This is just Americans seeing it for the first time. Google probably has an admin page that let’s them set it up without ever needing an engineer anymore. If you’re within this polygon you see this line, else you see the line over there. The alternative is they get sued/shut down in that country/ etc. While I have no love for Google, this is simply them picking their battles.
this is simply them picking their battles.
name a battle they picked to fight for the benefit of the common man in the last :
- 1 month
- 3 months
- 6 months
- 1 Year
If they’re picking battles, they must have done something worthwhile, right?
To directly answer the question: within the last 3 or 6 months (I’m not sure precisely), they banned multiple youtubers that were placing ads to work for Russian Alabuga and it’s drone production. It’s an example of using their weight, in this case even something good.
On the other hand, I mostly actually agree with you. While I do think that they are picking their battles, I also think which battles they go into is usually not in your or mine interests. Instead, the battles are frequently in the interests of the richest google investors (think 10M+) and the US government, as of late. The Alabuga case above is a good and noteworthy exception.
Look, I hate Google as much as the next guy, but do you know what the phrase “picking your battles” actually means?
Yeah, reserving your resources for moments that actually matter instead of wasting them for every petty issue.
But I don’t think they are reserving anything for any moment, worthwhile or not. So they aren’t “picking their battles” they are “doing jack shit”
No, that’s not what I said, I said they’re picking their battles, and I didn’t offer any reason or justification for why. You can do that if you choose, but I’m not going to go off and do errands to prove a point I wasn’t making.
I said they’re picking their battles, and I didn’t offer any reason or justification for why
OK, and I’m saying they are not picking anything, and just rolling over. There is no fucking battle that they are fighting, so they aren’t picking any battles.
I remember Google doing it with the Gulf of Mexico, so they shouldn’t be too surprised it wasn’t that long ago.
American here, currently traveling through the (boring) state of Nebraska.
I just checked Google Maps from my Android tablet app. It shows Lake America for me:

Jfc. So how is OsmAnd these days?
Just installed it to compare my driving route tomorrow with Google Maps and OsmAnd crashed. Sigh.
I think car navigation is better in CoMaps, even though OsmAnd is superior in every other way.
I really don’t like the user experience of OsmAnd to the point where I find it unusable. I use Comaps all the time and love it. Each to their own I guess.
Just tried Comaps and It was pleasantly acceptable.
OsmAnd doesn’t crash for me but for some reason it gives most directions as notifications instead of saying them out loud, which is completely useless. I use HERE WeGo instead.
On the contrary…


We all remember the usa and google doing this to The Gulf of Mexico don’t we?
That is why we no longer accept US people referring to themselves as Americans, they don’t own the continent(s), even though that is their obvious aim.
google maps New Zealand

Why would it be changed for New Zealand?
Edit - Ah wait, that’s a point of interest and not the map label.
that is the result from typing ‘lake ontario’ into google maps (not signed in) on a browser
this is what shows on a mouseover

Smallest of the 5 great lakes 😂
Also, it’s very definitely not Superior.
Lac inférieure
I still have Ontario on desktop and the wifes android down here
My screenshots are taken while not logged into google, opening google maps n a browser, and typing in ‘lake ontario’. not being logged in might make a difference for some reason? the nz one is via a vpn (which is definitely working)
How about for the other one? (shows the same for aus and nz for me)

I can’t comprehend what’s going on!? Why!?
The result of 60 years of propaganda and anti-intellectualism
The result of people not revolting against fascist takeover; 30% of the people are allowed to control the direction of the entire country.
The 30% are also the most worthless, irredeemable, deplorable people
google maps Australia

If you’re bored, report missing information and say the lake is wrong and that this will cause conflicts with street signs and directions for actual locations. May as well give them a bunch of support tickets that waste some amount of resources
I’m sure after making this kind of change, they also have an automated system that redirects all related support tickets directly to the trash.
Google has been sending support requests directly to the trash for at least 20 years, nothing new here
They even seem to have some automations for it. The route to my old apartment was shown wrong and delivery drivers almost always popped up on the wrong side of my building behind my backyard. I tried to fix this but my edits were automatically rejected as being malicious. That’s one reason I don’t use Google Maps for navigation anymore.
It seems like the majority of Google products and features are built to support someone’s promotion effort. Once they are promoted or if they quit the company, no one else is around to support it and the product is eventually canceled. Thats why the list here is so long: https://killedbygoogle.com/. And good luck even getting through to a real person for support. Its bots all the way down.
Google has always shown the local official name for everything. Borders and names can vary a lot depending on where you are from. I still see lake Ontario since I’m not from the US.

Nothing changed from my side, still lake Ontario.
















