I am in the long process of DeGoogling. When I saw this post I set my VPN location to Canada.
Spain here… still says Lake Ontario on mine
But I remember when the “Gulf of America” was declared, it still said Gulf of Mexico for a while, after a while it changed it to both names:
Sad state of affairs, but this is google 🤷♂️
We all remember the usa and google doing this to The Gulf of Mexico don’t we?
That is why we no longer accept US people referring to themselves as Americans, they don’t own the continent(s), even though that is their obvious aim.
google maps New Zealand
Why would it be changed for New Zealand?
Edit - Ah wait, that’s a point of interest and not the map label.
that is the result from typing ‘lake ontario’ into google maps (not signed in) on a browser
this is what shows on a mouseover
I still have Ontario on desktop and the wifes android down here
My screenshots are taken while not logged into google, opening google maps n a browser, and typing in ‘lake ontario’. not being logged in might make a difference for some reason? the nz one is via a vpn (which is definitely working)
How about for the other one? (shows the same for aus and nz for me)
Smallest of the 5 great lakes 😂
Also, it’s very definitely not Superior.
Lac inférieure
I can’t comprehend what’s going on!? Why!?
The result of 60 years of propaganda and anti-intellectualism
The result of people not revolting against fascist takeover; 30% of the people are allowed to control the direction of the entire country.
The 30% are also the most worthless, irredeemable, deplorable people
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
It seems like the majority of Google products and features are built to support someone’s promotion effort. Once they are promoted or if they quit the company, no one else is around to support it and the product is eventually canceled. Thats why the list here is so long: https://killedbygoogle.com/. And good luck even getting through to a real person for support. Its bots all the way down.
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.
Nothing changed from my side, still lake Ontario.
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.
Still normal in the UK
Google shows you different things based on your location
This is why I specified my location
On the contrary…
google maps Australia
So… Any good FOSS alternatives for navigation while biking?
I tried changing to Organic Maps but had to change back because it was really inaccurate outside of cities and the voice guide kept telling me to turn too early or too late 😮💨
I’ve been using osmand with great success. It’s completely free and no membership required. You even get the plus features if you download it from f-droid instead of Google play
I never had problems with Comaps or Organic Maps, and in my experience they are particularly good outside of cities.
I don’t use voice guide though, but my advice would be to give comaps a shot and see if they fixed whatever bug you were having.
Organic Maps is shady anyway. I hear good things about comaps, but haven’t actually used it for navigation because like every other FOSS app, it doesn’t have live traffic data
That is a very big issue. I wish there was a way to get live traffic or even construction data into them.
OsmAnd~ with Brouter works very well on Android. You can even choose various routing modes that change how much it avoids large roads. Unfortunately its a bit fiddly to setup and the OsmAnd UX is extremely yanky.
Really Bud?Wrong.
Fuck Google.
If it’s true, it’s probably geolocked to only the US seeing it.
Possibly, but that doesn’t look like a maps compass rose I’ve ever seen.
Could be for Android or something.
Here’s what I see on iOS in Australia
It is Android.
Still says Lake Ontario for me, on Android, in Google Maps. I’m in Europe
2 hours later and they’ve fully renamed it.
It’s still Ontario in Germany (Android).
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.
this is simply them picking their battles.
name a battle they picked to fight for the benefit of the common man in the last :
- 1 month
- 3 months
- 6 months
- 1 Year
If they’re picking battles, they must have done something worthwhile, right?
Look, I hate Google as much as the next guy, but do you know what the phrase “picking your battles” actually means?
Yeah, reserving your resources for moments that actually matter instead of wasting them for every petty issue.
But I don’t think they are reserving anything for any moment, worthwhile or not. So they aren’t “picking their battles” they are “doing jack shit”
To directly answer the question: within the last 3 or 6 months (I’m not sure precisely), they banned multiple youtubers that were placing ads to work for Russian Alabuga and it’s drone production. It’s an example of using their weight, in this case even something good.
On the other hand, I mostly actually agree with you. While I do think that they are picking their battles, I also think which battles they go into is usually not in your or mine interests. Instead, the battles are frequently in the interests of the richest google investors (think 10M+) and the US government, as of late. The Alabuga case above is a good and noteworthy exception.
No, that’s not what I said, I said they’re picking their battles, and I didn’t offer any reason or justification for why. You can do that if you choose, but I’m not going to go off and do errands to prove a point I wasn’t making.
I said they’re picking their battles, and I didn’t offer any reason or justification for why
OK, and I’m saying they are not picking anything, and just rolling over. There is no fucking battle that they are fighting, so they aren’t picking any battles.
I remember Google doing it with the Gulf of Mexico, so they shouldn’t be too surprised it wasn’t that long ago.
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?
IIRC they did this with the Gulf of Mexico too
I see Gulf of America in parentheses. You know, like a participation trophy.
Its well known that Google Maps shows different names/borders depending on where the user accesses it from
Tis normal in Denmark still
Yet but what the fuck
is this shitLooks like someone has created a location like a business or public amity in the lake.
They chickened out for the Gulf of Mexico, taking the coward’s middle road.
(As seen from Sweden)
Same for us down south
