this post was submitted on 13 Feb 2025
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The president of Mexico on Thursday expressed hope that Google "reconsiders" its decision to change its online maps to reflect U.S. President Donald Trump's claim that he has the authority to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico.

Shortly after taking office, Trump issued an executive order announcing he was changing the name of the body of water to the Gulf of America.

For U.S. users of Google Maps, the gulf was listed as the Gulf of America as of Thursday. Google, whose CEO attended Trump's inauguration along with other tech moguls, said last month it has "a long-standing practice of applying name changes when they have been updated in official government sources."

But Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum warned Thursday that her government "will file a civil suit" against Google if it does not revert back to labeling the international body of water the Gulf of Mexico.

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[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 35 points 6 days ago (4 children)

I want to know how many of the people here defending Google's decision would be okay with Google labeling Taiwan as "Taiwan (Chinese Taipei)" for people in Taiwan and also the rest of the world.

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[–] madcaesar@lemmy.world 26 points 6 days ago (3 children)

Republicans are so good at baiting liberals into useless bullshit arguments, while they plunder stuff that actually matters.

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[–] bitwolf@sh.itjust.works 20 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Google also removed the ability to suggest edits to specifically the Gulf.

Guess they knew ahead of time they'd get an influx of requests to change or back.

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[–] MellowYellow13@lemmy.world 38 points 6 days ago (3 children)

Ive been already boycotting google, amazon, facebook, reddit. Yall need to get on it

[–] LMurch@thelemmy.club 16 points 6 days ago (2 children)

My phone is a Pixel on Google Fi, and I have a YouTube premium account. I've got a lot of work ahead of me :( lol

[–] MellowYellow13@lemmy.world 11 points 6 days ago

Yeah its actually insane how far Googles reach has gotten

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[–] viking@infosec.pub 16 points 6 days ago (4 children)

Nah. I'll start boycotting google when there are useful alternatives. Amazon, facebook, reddit - no problem.

Google search - fine, I can get by with DDG or Yandex. Gmail - sure, whatever. Maps? Organic Maps (and other openstreetmaps front-ends) works alright for getting your bearings, but it's a far cry from useful for finding businesses, and terrible for navigation. Waze used to be the only viable alternative, but ever since Google bought them, it's hard to justify a full boycott without massively inconveniencing myself.

Same for meta as a whole. Facebook and Instagram, sure, no need. But living without whatsapp is simply impossible in some countries, where it's the de-facto standard for communication, and even used as the only means of contact with government agencies.

[–] aeshna_cyanea@lemm.ee 6 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

If you disapprove of internet companies caving to authoritarian politics, I have bad news for you about Yandex

[–] InterrobangBang@lemmy.world 5 points 6 days ago (3 children)

We did it with Lemmy. It CAN be done!

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[–] MellowYellow13@lemmy.world 5 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Yeah its true unfortunately

[–] TWB0109@lemmy.one 4 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Fr, I try, but it’s really not possible to get away from these companies.

Nobody wants signal, nobody wants mastodon, nobody wants or frankly can use openstreetmaps. Alternatives are just not good enough

[–] victorz@lemmy.world 6 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Alternatives are just not good enough

And to no fault of their own of course. They just aren't working with the same resources as Google and the others.

I think it's more a question of stepping down our level of comfort at this point. Can we live without a particular service that Google provides, when there are no alternatives with feature parity? Or can we live with the fact that some of the features aren't working as well or missing, and use the alternatives anyway?

[–] nossaquesapao@lemmy.eco.br 4 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Exactly. If there were perfectly interchangeable alternatives, there would have been a true competition and those companies wouldn't be holding the amount of power they do today in the first place.

Moving to alternatives requires some degree of effort and giving up on some microconforts. There's no other way. There's no fight without any pain. If we want to fight those companies, we must sacrifice those micro conforts, even if that means reducing tech use as a whole and doing a few things the "old fashioned" way.

[–] TWB0109@lemmy.one 3 points 6 days ago

Yeah, I still find it impressive how good mastodon and lemmy are given the limitations.

For sure, and that is possible for personal things, but for social things it’s almost impossible to live without some features.

People don’t want to step down their level of comfort when it comes to WhatsApp (where I live people don’t use SMS because they’re limited), so you’re forced to either keep your contacts (which includes family) or move to signal/threema/session/matrix/etc. But have no one to talk to

[–] AJ1@lemmy.ca 12 points 6 days ago

it really sucks when you realise that virtually everything is a US company... and yet everything they sell is made in fucking China

[–] tigolbitties@sh.itjust.works 21 points 6 days ago

I prefer the name "golfo del gringo loco"

[–] Gammelfisch@lemmy.world 16 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Don't even bother with a pointless lawsuit. Simply stop using Google.

[–] Elshar@lemmy.world 16 points 6 days ago (3 children)

Nah, they're a megacorp, you gotta hurt them where it counts - in their bottom line. Make them use their super expensive lawyers to defend this shit. Honestly more people/entities should do this. Even pro se, these corporate lawyers cost these companies literally hundreds of thousands of dollars to go into court. Just imagine how much you could cost them if everyone started suing them for any little thing. Even a response to a lawsuit requires a lawyer, which requires time and effort.

Its literally the only thing they care about - money. Strongly worded letters and protests aren't enough. They can ignore those.

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[–] fx242@lemmy.world 5 points 5 days ago

Golf of Portugal While we are at renaming things...

[–] yournamehere@lemm.ee 7 points 6 days ago (1 children)

or we keep american shit inside america. fuck googlemaps, apple and all other shitty US corporations. see, tump will die some day and be forgotten, but people will remember what apple and google did. next time you see someone work for alphabet...spit them in the face. next time an american buys a burger, you spit on it. etc. it is not about actual harm as america is killing itself anyway atm. my bingo card says if trump wins twice, there shall also be two pandemics. maybe protest the egg prices a bit more before using that muri-brain to do sth. against it. americans are just stupid.

[–] pewgar_seemsimandroid@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 6 days ago (1 children)
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[–] PlantDadManGuy@lemmy.world 8 points 6 days ago

Uninstalled 👍

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