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

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

Google Maps has had a different policy from this for a long time

As well as Lake Ontario.

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?

Wow, thanks for pointing this out. I'll do a mea culpa then. I was uncomfortable making Google the final arbiter of place names, as I didn't find a good reason why we should trust Google more than the democratically elected government of our country.

But I really like this policy. Even though it still relies on Google's definition of "common usage", it makes naming much less arbitrary and more sensical.

I was wrong in my previous analysis. Google had a clear, sensible, defined, published policy, and they broke it to appease a wannabe autocrat.

That was "Don't be evil" Google. This is "Do the right thing" Google, completely different. Here, "right" means "what's best for the company" and if that means bending the knee to a wannabe dictator, that's the right thing.

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.

[dead]

[flagged]