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points by philipov 17 hours ago | 0 comments

The key quote:

> 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.

[–] ericmay 17 hours ago

Well if you think about it the “don’t be evil” slogan was never really true in the first place.

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.

[–] philipov 16 hours ago

Looks like the French name for the English Channel is La Manche (The Sleeve) and many other countries follow this name. Whatever you think of renaming things, however, the policy of giving all the names for a place was a good one.

[–] DocTomoe 14 hours ago

And then there are European countries that just use a combination. Germany has 'Ärmelkanal' (literally: sleeve channel). If you can't make everyone happy, make everyone angry.

[–] philipov 14 hours ago

According to the policy in this blog (and remember this is from 18 years ago), they only need to make the people who border it happy, not everyone.

[–] ericmay 16 hours ago

It's an ok policy. For example I don't want to see "Chinese Taiwan/Republic of Taiwan" when I view Taiwan on a map as an America. It's just Taiwan to me and I'm not concerned with what people from other countries call it.

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.

[–] scottyah 13 hours ago

It's a complicated policy. What about if you're travelling in France? If someone gives you directions do you want it to not be shown on the map because you call it one thing? What about Canada, where part of the country would want the English Channel and the other La Manche. I get why showing two names would help a lot.

[–] ericmay 13 hours ago

Sure but you can leave some of those up to local nuances - like in Canada maybe they show both. In the US maybe they don't since we only call it the English Channel.

But I'd say that it's probably not a big deal anyway because how often are you going to run into such a scenario, and even if you do how would Google/whoever capture a lot of informal names for things? A little bit of confusion is fine too anyway.

[–] scottyah 12 hours ago

At google scale I imagine at least millions of times per day if not more. For what it's worth, here in CA it's just "English Channel" and I like that. I'm just saying that I don't see a way to do it perfectly every time, I agree that a little bit of confusion is OK.

[–] aeyes 16 hours ago

What has changed? On my Google Maps it shows as: Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America).

I'm located south of the equator.

[–] BryantD 16 hours ago

It only shows Gulf of America if you’re in the US. It should, according to this policy, show both no matter where you are.

[–] lopis 15 hours ago

Well technically it also says that in Japan they only display "Sea of Japan" in the local language (Japanese), so displaying just "Gulf of America" in the local language follows. This blog never expected that the USA would be involved in this kind of dispute.

[–] greycol 11 hours ago

No because americans actually commonly call it the Gulf of Mexico (despite US government fiat dictating it should be called the Super Intelligent Gulf and anyone against that being double plus ungood), Japanese people don't commonly call it the East Sea. That's the difference.

[–] munk-a 10 hours ago

Google Maps shows Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America) to Canadians - it does properly label Lake Ontario, though. The idiocy isn't limited just to the US.

[–] dbbk 14 hours ago

This isn't the current policy

[–] DocTomoe 14 hours ago

I'm in Germany, it shows me the real name, and the clownshow name. It does the same for Lake Ontario.

When I VPN to other countries, it does the same.

Not sure where you got your wisdom from.

[–] BryantD 14 hours ago

"It only shows Gulf of America if you’re in the US." I didn't say it didn't show both if you're in another country.