653
Google Maps renames “Lake Ontario” to “Lake America” even faster than US government
(arstechnica.com)
Boot licker.
this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2026
653 points (98.7% liked)
Technology
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They've been calling Palestine "Israel" since they came out, but none of you cared. Selective outrage over a distraction by the pedophile class.
Wonder if the guy that is super mad that people care about this is around.
Good. And I hope he signs an executive order to rename some oceans too.
These are marginally impactful in terms of real consequences and easily undone with the next administration, but extremely visible to and unpopular with voters. Every little bit helps.
Yes, I agree. People who otherwise don't pay a lot of attention generally think it's really stupid, so it brings more attention to stupid things. It may be a very small thing that can be changed easily, but you're so right. It brings a lot of attention that is not so positive for Trump and the crew.
Just tried the Mapquest app and it worked perfectly. As far as I can tell it doesn't have satellite view, but I usually just dick around with that when I'm bored sitting at an actual computer, not when I actually need directions.
Apple took slightly longer but as of this morning it also has the wrong name for Lake Ontario
Everyone spam them with map corrections!
Im doing my part .gif
I started deleting all my Google data yesterday
It's going to take me a long time to De-Google but you have the right idea.
The best time to start was years ago, but good for you for starting.
I started by just using another email as my main, to now I don't need a single Alphabet product for anything I do.
It's annoying that it's not easier. I should be able to go to some European or Canadian competitor and at least know that I am not giving my data directly to US data brokers. Why aren't there more options? You can't tell me the US is the only one who has tech knowledge.
A lot of Americans would instantly jump to a Chinese competitor if they offered English support, fully knowing that all their data is going to the CCP to avoid the US surveillance landscape as it already is.
Five eyes disagrees with this sentiment
A lot of Americans would instantly jump to a Chinese competitor
I think this is pretty true. To expand:
I am stuck between a rock and a hard place. I have to either run my own email/hosting/storage servers and surrounding infrastructure with the tech understanding required to do so*, or give my data to someone else. Not having an email address is not realistic when it's the primary key for your bank, school, employer, etc.
*A decade or so ago, running an SMTP server was trivial. Now, it needs DMARC, DKIM, SPF, publicly trusted certificates, and maybe newer things I'm not familiar with in order to be able send email. These are not bad things, but they increase the requirements for self-hosting.
Right now, that 'someone else' is generally google or microsoft for most people, and those companies are so big they get to dictate how other tools I need to use work. They also freely sell my data or give it to the government - possibly without any sort of warrant via 'data sharing agreements'.
US-based data brokers are actively hostile to me. A Chinese data broker is less likely to care, since I'm further from their profit model: I'm unlikely to buy a Chinese cereal or make-up brand or visit a restaurant halfway across the globe. This only matters as long as US and Chinese data brokers don't share info, but I suspect there's friction there. If there's not, then there's no reason to NOT switch.
If I have to give my data to someone, then I'd prefer to give it to someone who doesn't directly impact or care about me the way google/microslop and the US government do.
Where do I even begin with 20 years of emails on their servers 🤦♂️
An agent could help, but still tons of work
An agent like Gemini? 🤣
Use free Gemini to move off Gmail, double damage
Not for users outside the US, though.
~~Don't be evil~~ Be a cuck
i wonder how many canadians that were sitting on the fence about de-googling are no longer sitting on that fence......
-
start by changing your default search, google ai overviews made it useless anyways. check out duck duck go or startpage
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stop using google spyware browser (chrome and all chrome builds) and switch to firefox (or preferably a privacy focused fork, i.e. waterfox, librewolf
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learn linux...... quit windows
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self-host your own server and run your own localized, private apps, immich instead of google photos, vaultwarden instead of password manager, jellyfin instead of netflix, etc.
5.??????
- profit!!!!
Duckduckgo is backed by microsoft/bing which they have a contract with.
Startpage is the duckduck alternative that uses google, its unknown wether they have a contract.
These places are still better then google/bing themselves but people often wrongfully assume that they provide a privacy oriented service.
If you really want to go anticorporate you can host your own searxng, which still by default uses results from google and bing but can be configured to use any on your preference and its code open to verify that they do not give exclusive permission to certain paying corporations.
Using searxng it can happen that some google result could not be retrieved because of api limits… one has to wonder why Startpage does not have those limits.
But even just getting off the main Google search page is huge. So much of this is about adopting a posture of flexibility and taking responsibility for your data to some extent, and which companies you can and can't tolerate. So just rejecting the convenience of using Google as search is great.
Because now you don't feel so totally helpless—you've got an example of exercising your agency over your "digital life" and you can keep doing it as needed/desired with greater ease.
Main thing to realise is you're not going to find a drop-in replacement for Google that is some giant centralised search and auth platform strangely super-motivated to reduce friction between you accessing products online.
I did say there still better then the main page but i guess i should have put more emphasis on that.
I know many people irl who are are into computers and use ddg, blindly trusting that there search is fully private while there current search terms are directly used to serve them ads (somehow that does not count as personalized)
Its shades of grey, i am very happy they took agency to get rid of google but I really wish people, at least in the computer sector, where more aware of how far corporate reach goes.
You're good, I just wanted to make the point for anyone who might just give up and stick with Google because they can't decide on a perfectly virtuous replacement.
Any change from the mainstream is a good change. But for anyone who wants to dig even deeper, oooo boy is that something you can get into.
Sure, duckduckgo dosent have their own web crawlers. Duckduckgo uses someone elses index in this case Microsofts. This dosent mean they sell your data to microsoft or that your search queries fingerprint you the same way as microsoft. They just use microsoft's big list of websites
They have a long standing corporate deal with microsoft.
The details are vague but this is not hidden, or kept secret.
Ddg has themselves said that the policy that required them to give exclusive acces to Microsoft trackers no longer applied and now blocks them since 2022. This is on the Wikipedia i shared.
But if you read between them lines. They are following Microsoft policies, if they are now allowed to block those trackers its because microslop allowed them to do so.
Tech companies only do such thing if they have incentives. A more covert way to get the same data, a long term plan to acquire and otherwise for PR.
Searxng also uses those same search querys but without corporate deal. Thats why if you refresh a lot you hit an api limit.. any search engine that does not do that while using these trackers is somehow paying or bartering for access.
The wiki referance linked and subsequent article talk about trackers on the DDG browser not about search queries. DDG have a corperate license with Microsoft, sure, but any amount of line reading on or between seems conspirital at best.
Looks like this corperate contract with Microsoft is a secret especially if you have to "between the lines" read about a completly seperate product.
And i go to a publicly hosted instance of searxng and immediatly get told the past 10 search queries? Dosent seem magicaly private to me. To which your response might be "its designed to be selfhosted. " Sure that maybe the case, but we are just putting extra lines on this social contract to read between now. Not terrible but not perfect, which is the same area DuckDuckGo is playing in so i am prepared to take them at their word.
people often wrongfully assume that they provide a privacy oriented service.
What do you think they provide then? DDG sits between me and Bing, the latter doesn't get my data.
Microsoft does get your data. This is why i wrote that comment.
Read the wikipedia entry. Microsoft and ddg have a long standing openly known about deal.
Microsoft allows ddg to block bing trackers since 2022, ddg has always allowed them till then. but they must be getting something else to change that policy. No way microsoft is just giving api acces out of being good.
Its getting tired to repeat myself, which are verifiable facts.
Microsoft does get your data
they must be getting something else
which are verifiable facts
“My source is that I decided it must be true.”
You realize that DDG is a commercial company and they use part of the revenue to pay for third-party services they use? Or did you think they just run the service for shits and giggles?
You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make them drink.
I think the words of Gabriel Weinberg ( founder of ddg) as recorded on Wikipedia is a reliable source but you don’t have to believe him.
Show me where Weinberg said that DDG continues to allow MS' trackers to this day, or sends them other data, which is what you claim, continuing to weasel out of supporting it with any evidence except for “I feel that way”.
Besides, you must have missed that the trackers affair was about the DDG browser, whereas this thread is about the search engine.
Again for clarity i think its fine that people use ddg, its betters then bing and google. But the absolute trust people seem to have is wild considering all of this. I occasionally use both ddg and startpage myself
The summary of my evidence is the hyperlink in my first comment.
Back on topic;
Hé doesn’t say that, the trackers are being blocked since 2022 since microsoft agreed to change the policy. Thats also in my original link
I guess you could believe this was unrelated that this happened just after it became a scandal but i am not that naive.
As a response to the scandal the ceo has the following to say.
For non-search tracker blocking (eg in our browser), we block most third-party trackers. Unfortunately our Microsoft search syndication agreement prevents us from doing more to Microsoft-owned properties. However, we have been continually pushing and expect to be doing more soon.
Bleeping computers, who originally ran this story hit the nail on its head with
“While DuckDuckGo has been transparent regarding the advertisement partnership with Microsoft, it is not clear why they did not disclose the allowing of Microsoft trackers until a security researcher discovered it.
This revelation comes at the wrong time, as DuckDuckGo recently went after Google for their new 'Topics' and 'FLEDGE' tracking methods, saying, "Google says they're better for privacy, but the simple fact is tracking is tracking, no matter what you call it."
Especially that last part is something ddg seemed to really want to forget cause after the ceo came with the following.
"We have always been extremely careful to never promise anonymity when browsing, because that frankly isn’t possible given how quickly trackers change how they work to evade protections and the tools we currently offer. When most other browsers on the market talk about tracking protection, they are usually referring to 3rd-party cookie protection and fingerprinting protection, and our browsers for iOS, Android, and our new Mac beta, impose these restrictions on third-party tracking scripts, including those from Microsoft.
Thats a huge leap in attitude from tracking is tracking..
You are allowed to trust this guy, i see no reason why anyone would and i am gonna continue to get people to remain critical.
On the browser, i legit didn’t know there where 2 products but i don’t think that matters regardless trusting this corporation.
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The problem is, “who wants to be a computer admin?” To which Google says, “I’ll be yours (and I’ll narc on you too for ads and IC).”
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There's a reason they removed "Don't be Evil" from their corporate tenets. The almighty dollar comes first to them and they refuse to risk angering The Orange One.
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So fwiw, the change was made official and updated in GNIS the day it changed on Google Maps, which uses GNIS behind the scenes. That same day, USGS said the name had taken effect in GNIS but that it was waiting for its maps to visually update.
I think this is a product of Google's infrastructure being faster to automatically update with GNIS changes. The fact they didn't step in to override it already shows that they're willing to go along with this; I don't think the fact it changed before USGS adds any significance to that bootlicking.
That is, I don't assume Google manually intervened to make this happen faster.
Still, fuck Google Maps. I'm glad people are waking up to how this level of hegemony over maps gives corporations too much power.
I wish this was talked about more. So much hay being made about this on the assumption that Google maintains their own database of locations instead of pulling from sources like GNIS like they actually do.
Fuck Google, but we don't need to make shit up to hate them. In fact, making shit up makes us seem crazy and hurts our position. These companies do enough real evil shit, we don't need to piss our time away on this non-issue.
Where's this fucking energy for Google removing sideloading from Android, for example. I've seen way more mainstream news about this one item on a fucking map than I have about the loss of sideloading and the loss of actual ownership of the devices we purchase.
More likely, they have their own DB, or data lake, or whatever repository it might be, but it ingests the data from multiple sources.
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I know it won’t matter, but you can report something missing in the map and call it out.
That's no surprise. The US government is really slow at getting things done
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