Mexican President Threatens to Sue Google Over 'Gulf of America' Label on Maps.
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It's stupid, but it's not that extreme. Countries have different names for things. For example, Germany calls the Baltic Sea "Ostsee" (lit. east sea) and Lake Constance 'Bodensee" (lit. bottom sea) but those things are only at the bottom and east for Germany.
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There's a slight difference in that "Ostsee" is the common name. If the German chancellor decides to call it "Deutsche See" tomorrow, the name would continue to be "Ostsee", because that's how language usually works.
"Gulf of America" is just a dictator's wish of a common name. The people of OpenStreetMap decided to use the tag "official_name:en_US" for that reason, while keeping "Gulf of Mexico" for the commonly used "name:en-US".
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Reality has to BE.
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Interestingly (or not) it's also used in French but only in one case that I'm aware of. Monsieur is abbreviated to M. while messieurs (plural) is MM.
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My point is the names are different in different places. At some point, people named things from their perspective irregardless of what others, including those living adjacent to the thing cal it
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I'm suggesting that if Trump wants to be the one to cross the Rubicon, let Trump be the one to cross it. No need to meet him on the other side first.
In theory yes, Google should face no consequences for publishing an inaccurate map. There's actually an old tradition of publishing maps with at least 1 inaccuracy in order to catch forgeries, which has never been a legal issue in the US. It shouldn't be any more controversial than a published document choosing to call Jerusalem "Al-Quds"
In practice, I imagine Trump will throw a tantrum and try to argue that Google doesn't have the right to say no to him. And if that's the stance he wants to take, disregarding the constitutional protections that Google ought to have, let his administration waste time and resources arguing that in the courts. If he wins, then we can all stop pretending the constitution means anything, and if he loses, it's a blow to his ego, resources wasted, and we can turn the focus on other companies to say they have an ethical obligation to change the names back.
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If we’re going to play that demagogic game, why not make “United States of America” be shown as “United States of North America” to reclaim the continent name back? Companies will comply if it’s an official request.
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The new name shows only for USA. In Mexico it’s unchanged, or shown with both names.
Our president is dumb and just wants to look like she’s fighting back.
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Where will the lawsuit be filed in?
Mexican courts? Good luck getting an American company to comply.
US Courts, well... surely no judge would be biased right? glances at the composition of the US Supreme court
International Courts? Lol like they have any power at all.
Reminds me of The Expanse:
"Earth Court? Mars Court? What Inner court gives Belters justice?"
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First, what laws are violated? Doubt international law touches this, US law maybe?
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Mexican courts? Good luck getting an American company to comply.
Why not? Brazilian courts ordered Twitter to ban some people, Twitter refused, court treated to jail Brazilian Twitter legal representatives, Twitter closed their Brazilian office to shield itself from Brazilian courts, Brazilian courts ordered ISPs to block Twitter because they had no legal representatives on the country, after a couple of weeks without Brazilian access Twitter bow down, rehired their legal representatives and complied with Brazilian court orders.
Don't see why Mexican courts couldn't do the same with Google Maps.
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Out with the oldspeak. In with the newspeak.
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By "comply", I mean like getting them to revert the map rename. Kicking them out and blocking them isn't really getting them to "comply"
By contrast, if the US government wanted Google to do something, they could storm their headquarters and get the government tech people to go in the servers and change it.
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So why did google change it in Canada, then?
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Currently in Mexico, it displays the name your phone region is set to. It still shows Gulf of America on my phone, even when I am on Mexican WiFi.
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In order to do business in Mexico, they must agree to Mexican laws.
In order to do business in Canada, they must follow Canadian laws.
In order to do business in the US, they must
follow US lawskiss the ring.This isn't the first time big tech has had to tackle something like this. Usually it's with disputed territory. In that case, each region gets to see what it demands to see, while presenting something different to the rest of the world.
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That's kind of what I'm thinking
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I legitimately don't understand why the U.S. isn't the only locality where it shows up as "Gulf of America".
Set the en-US string to "Gulf of America". Leave literally every other region's text string untouched from what it was 6 months ago.
When the next Democrat U.S. President gets sworn in and immediately Executive Orders it back to "Gulf of Mexico", change the en-US string back to that.
This is all so stupid and melodramatic.
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I always wondered why it had double letters. Thank you!
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It's definitely a distraction tactic, but at the very least looking at Google Maps and Bing Maps makes very clear to people which megacorps are riding the oligarchy; just in case anyone held hope their favorite "techbro revolutionary" might side with them.
PS: Mapquest gets it right.
