70 points terminalbraid 1 hour ago 44 comments

imafish 48 minutes ago | parent

American Ocean incoming?

comboy 27 minutes ago | parent

I think you might have missed the latest onion: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/oct/22/trump-atlant...

RajT88 9 minutes ago | parent

Canada > America North

philipov 47 minutes ago | parent

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 20 minutes ago | parent

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 10 minutes ago | parent

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.

GS_TO 44 minutes ago | parent

I was literally swimming in Lake Ontario when I learned it was now Lake America. Nice capitulation, Google.

ArekDymalski 37 minutes ago | parent

Looking at my Google Maps right now I see:

Lake Ontario (Lake America)

does it mean that the complete name change has been introduced only locally, in US?

vaillancourtmax 23 minutes ago | parent

I still see only "Lake Ontario" on my end (from Canada).

Dunewalnut22 43 minutes ago | parent

Funny thing is the 2025 Gulf rename kind of follows this policy by region. US users get Gulf of America, Mexico gets Gulf of Mexico, and everyone else sees both labels.

mapontosevenths 40 minutes ago | parent

Incorrect. They are explicit that they use the 'common' name, specifically to avoid arbitrary changes by (despotic) rulers.

ActionHank 28 minutes ago | parent

"everyone else sees both labels"

Just because the US has decided to smear faeces on their walls doesn't mean we all need to admire it.

chipotle_coyote 19 minutes ago | parent

No, it doesn't. Quoting the document: "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" (emphasis in original).

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.

mapontosevenths 42 minutes ago | parent

"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. "

They violated their own policy with the gulf then.

lallysingh 40 minutes ago | parent

Same name, but the company is quite different. What of that old Google is left now?

freecodeio 24 minutes ago | parent

only the 2 founders, which seems have become quite out of touch lately

nervai 21 minutes ago | parent

"The United Nations is a transparently antisemitic organisation" - Google Co Founder

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/07/08/sergey-...

coef2 22 minutes ago | parent

The last two words of their old motto "don't be evil"

rickdeckard 10 minutes ago | parent

I guess the "Maps" Team follows a different policy than the "Earth" team...

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?

poulpy123 8 minutes ago | parent

It's an american company, whatever they say come with an asterisk saying whatever they say it depends on what the powers in the USA decide (and it's the same for other countries with their own companies).

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.

rickdeckard 5 minutes ago | parent

It seems their actual policy is "the policy of Primary Local Usage":

"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

thrance 40 minutes ago | parent

> As the publishers of a geographic reference tool, we believe that Google should not choose sides in international geopolitical disputes. For this reason, we've chosen to implement a uniform policy of Primary Local Usage.

Yeah, right, until a wannabe despot comes in and demands Google come lick its boots. In which case Google immediately complies with zero objection.

toyg 15 minutes ago | parent

No, no, not "a" wannabe despot - specifically one from the United States and possibly Cina. You can be certain they would not care about the demands of, say, the president of Cuba.

Trasmatta 33 minutes ago | parent

The title of the post is actually:

> 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.

cubefox 28 minutes ago | parent

Yes. There is some old regex (probably written 20 years ago) which automatically tries to improve the titles. One of the more silly rules is to remove "how" from the beginning.

yreg 27 minutes ago | parent

Yes, leading How in title is always removed and often leads to worse titles.

I don't like these magical (unexpected) solutions.

mikelitoris 32 minutes ago | parent

How times have changed sigh

alansaber 27 minutes ago | parent

Are we surprised that technology companies are extremely mercenary? Why?

cubefox 25 minutes ago | parent

What happened on Google Earth when the Democrats renamed some mountain a few years ago?

Also: Why is this comment downvoted?

psbp 18 minutes ago | parent

Alaskans used Denali for generations, before and after it was arbitrarily named McKinley.

chipotle_coyote 17 minutes ago | parent

This article on the Google blog is about naming disputes between countries, not name changes driven by changing political winds within the same country. Of course, you know that and you're just trolling, which also explains why the comment is downvoted. You're welcome.

anew 6 minutes ago | parent

Apples and Oranges. Denali is and was a name used for thousands of years. Nobody suggested naming the mountain Mt Czolgosz.

cbondurant 14 minutes ago | parent

Of course, the solution described here is not a perfect one, (as perfect solutions don't really exist when it comes to messy human things like international politics) but it at least follows from an easy to identify set of principles on how ambiguous situations like these should be handled.

Then you look at the current day with the "Gulf of America" which fails to be primary, common, or local, and just get disappointed.

paulvnickerson 6 minutes ago | parent

Google is an American company. America's President asked the name be changed. Kinda stupid to accuse them of anything untoward.

afavour 5 minutes ago | parent

So wild to be living in a time where the most powerful man in the world is very obviously turning senile and those that surround him choose to indulge his outbursts rather than address the problem.