That's not obeying in advance. The change already happened, it's the official name according to the United States. GNIS has published the change, and Google is just reflecting that change.
But, Google is not legally obliged to in this case. Google is obeying in advance.
His comments are incorrect.
>Google has chosen, at the behest of no law, to place the US on its "sensitive countries" list, which is the mechanism it uses to show users from certain countries incorrect names which it is legally obliged to.
That is not what happened, you got fooled by fake news. From Google directly: "This report is misleading. “Sensitive” is simply used in our internal systems for countries that see different official names in Maps (like a different name for a body of water) — that’s all there is to it. This is common & includes dozens of countries. Adding the U.S. & Mexico to that list means nothing more than that."[0]
"Gulf of America" is not an incorrect name, that is the current offical name of that body of water according to the GNIS, which is the authoritative source in the US.
>But, Google is not legally obliged to in this case. Google is obeying in advance.
Google is just following the protocol they've always followed, one that predates Trump. They're not doing anything in advance. This is by definition not "obeying in advance."
QED.
[0] https://x.com/NewsFromGoogle/status/1884450853136073002?mx=2
For a recent example, Mount Evans in Colorado was changed to Mount Blue Sky
https://www.cnbctv18.com/technology/google-reclassifies-us-a...
There's a big difference between those two situations.
The executive branch has decided to call it something different than its internationally accepted name as a political stunt. Google could just ignore this, but instead they chose to obey in advance.
If the US government says it’s the name of something, then it’s any map company’s job to display the valid name of the thing to the users in that country. They still show “Gulf of Mexico” to users in other countries.
Google is kotowing to authoritarian nonsense. There's no reason they need to follow the executive branch's naming scheme. We're not a fascist state (yet). They can use whatever name they want, they can use the name that's internationally agreed upon.
That's not an excuse, it's exactly what happened according to Google: "We have a longstanding practice of applying name changes when they have been updated in official government sources."[0]
>No-one else in the world uses that name
Immaterial.
>and the U.S. doesn't control the majority of those waters.
Neither does Mexico. Mexico and the US are both in the Americas. Similarly immaterial though.
>Google is kotowing to authoritarian nonsense.
Google is doing the exact opposite of what you're claiming by instead not changing their procedure as the politics administration changes.
>There's no reason they need to follow the executive branch's naming scheme.
Sure there is: consistency of following authoritative resources.
>We're not a fascist state (yet). They can use whatever name they want, they can use the name that's internationally agreed upon.
I think you're being a bit histrionic here. I suggest spending a day away from the screen.
[0] https://x.com/NewsFromGoogle/status/1884012692048166951
Further reading: https://blog.google/products/maps/united-states-geographic-n...