That was fast
this post was submitted on 30 Aug 2026
197 points (97.6% liked)
DeGoogle Yourself
17671 readers
275 users here now
A community for those that would like to get away from Google.
Here you may post anything related to DeGoogling, why we should do it or good software alternatives!
Rules
-
Be respectful even in disagreement
-
No advertising unless it is very relevent and justified. Do not do this excessively.
-
No low value posts / memes. We or you need to learn, or discuss something.
Related communities
!privacyguides@lemmy.one !privacy@lemmy.ml !privatelife@lemmy.ml !linuxphones@lemmy.ml !fossdroid@social.fossware.space !fdroid@lemmy.ml
founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
Honestly, this is pure overreaction once again. It's well known that Google (and most non-OSS maps) show their information for your location based on the official sources for that location. The new, official name in the US for Lake Ontario is Lake America, like it or not. That this is stupid, unhinged and a fully retarded Trump take is true, but it's official for the American side. Canada could do the same and call it Lake Canada. It doesn't change how other countries call it, but any country could name it the way it wants.
This is not some Trumpist at Google doing insider work. This is not a conspiracy of Google supporting Trump. It's that Google maps is querying its data from some source and pushing it into maps, as they do with any country official source, if it's available.
Again, not defending Google's other shit or Trumps madness, but in this case they're showing the correct data. What's the issue here?
Still normal in the UK
Google shows you different things based on your location
Normal in NZ
Tis normal in Denmark still
They chickened out for the Gulf of Mexico, taking the coward's middle road.
(As seen from Sweden)
Same for us down south
Yet but what the fuck 
is this shit
Getting in a tiff about this lake shmake nonsense lends to its legitimacy.
Let's talk turkey. How about them heretofore Epstein files, now known as the trump files.
Google has always shown the local official name for everything. Borders and names can vary a lot depending on where you are from. I still see lake Ontario since I'm not from the US.
If you're bored, report missing information and say the lake is wrong and that this will cause conflicts with street signs and directions for actual locations. May as well give them a bunch of support tickets that waste some amount of resources
I’m sure after making this kind of change, they also have an automated system that redirects all related support tickets directly to the trash.
Google has been sending support requests directly to the trash for at least 20 years, nothing new here
They even seem to have some automations for it. The route to my old apartment was shown wrong and delivery drivers almost always popped up on the wrong side of my building behind my backyard. I tried to fix this but my edits were automatically rejected as being malicious. That’s one reason I don’t use Google Maps for navigation anymore.
Edit: Just checked again. It’s still wrong on Google Maps, still correct on Apple Maps.
google maps New Zealand
Smallest of the 5 great lakes 😂
I still have Ontario on desktop and the wifes android down here
Nothing changed from my side, still lake Ontario.
google maps Australia
Really Bud?
Its well known that Google Maps shows different names/borders depending on where the user accesses it from
If it's true, it's probably geolocked to only the US seeing it.
IIRC they did this with the Gulf of Mexico too
I see Gulf of America in parentheses. You know, like a participation trophy.
Guaranteed is. This is not new to Google, they have disputed territories, disputed names, they have gone through this before. This is just Americans seeing it for the first time. Google probably has an admin page that let's them set it up without ever needing an engineer anymore. If you're within this polygon you see this line, else you see the line over there. The alternative is they get sued/shut down in that country/ etc. While I have no love for Google, this is simply them picking their battles.
I remember Google doing it with the Gulf of Mexico, so they shouldn’t be too surprised it wasn’t that long ago.
load more comments
(7 replies)
American here, currently traveling through the (boring) state of Nebraska.
I just checked Google Maps from my Android tablet app. It shows Lake America for me:
I'm from the US but moved to Sweden a year ago. It's changed for me when I look at it. So maybe it's not specifically geolocjed but has to do with where my account was set up, or some localization setting somewhere?
load more comments
(6 replies)
I didn't believe you so I checked and yep, they actually fucking did it.
view more: next ›