Photo by Shutter Speed on Unsplash.

Ever seen a child write their name on something and then claim it's theirs?

Well, the most powerful person in the world has the same sophisticated world view as that child, as evidenced by his latest attempt to revise the world map with a squiggle of his sharpie.

I'm not going to get into the merits of renaming Lake Ontario (not least because there aren't any, so it'd be a short post) but rather one company's reaction to it. Because (much to the surprise of nobody) Google has rushed to once again revise their popular Maps app, to reflect the whims of the octogenarian currently living in the remains of the White House.

Photo by Luke Greenwood on Unsplash.

The Gulf of whatever you say, sir

After Trump's last geographical tantrum, during which he sought to rename the Gulf of Mexico (after the continent that also contains Mexico), Google did the exact same thing.

Google's approach was simple- they'd call it the "Gulf of Mexico" in Mexico, the "name I won't dignify by repeating it" in the United States, and both in most other parts of the world. Then, as now, Google is trying to cast themselves as an innocent neutral party, simply following the lead of the government in whatever jurisdiction they're operating in.

There's just one problem with that line, though- it's boot-licking nonsense.

Photo by Jurica Koletić on Unsplash.

The organic nature of naming

If I asked you to name the tower in the photo above, you'd probably say Big Ben rather than Elizabeth Tower, and that's because places tend to be called the things that people call them, not what a government would like them to be called.

This is a common theme in the English language, where a word becomes a word because people use it. It isn't a top down structure where an organization selects new words and distributes them to the masses- the masses use new words and the organization records them.

My point here, is that Google isn't actually obliged to follow the government's direction on this, any more than it's obliged to edit the search results every time Trump gets somebody's name wrong.

Google is choosing to follow the government's lead, while vocally stating that that´s what they're doing, so that they can avoid any blame, stay in Trump's good graces, and carry on making as much money as possible.

"Just following orders"

Google changed the names of the lake and the gulf on their maps for the same reason they'll change it back if the next president tells them to- because they don't want to give a president of any party a reason to dislike them.

If the government is happy with you, they won't interfere with your business of monetizing the data and attention of the American public, so better to just toe the line. If a big part of the public get mad at you, just say it wasn't your decision, because you were just following orders, and wait for the news cycle to move on.

It's the defence of war criminals, mobsters and all manner of scoundrels, and now it's being used by big tech too.

Where do you draw the line?

Once you start bowing to the will of any official who represent a populace that's essential to your profit margins, it's hard to tell where you'll stop.

In normal times, this wouldn't really be an issue for something like a maps app, but these aren't normal times and this isn't a normal president. If Trump announces tomorrow that Canada is part of the US, will Google wipe it from the map? If China offers some access to it's vast online market in return for showing Taiwan as part of China, will they do as they're told?

Probably, yeah.

Photo by Timo Volz on Unsplash.

Maps aren't always clear

As much as we may think of maps as an impartial representation of the world, they're always slanted towards the opinions and prejudices of the people who make them. With that in mind, it'd be easy to have at least some sympathy for Alphabet (parent company of Google).

But I don't.

For a company with a $4.193 Trillion USD market cap (as of August 2026) and a near monopoly on swaths of the world's digital infrastructure, Google isn't powerless and beholden to the whims of whoever happens to be president.

They aren't obliged to rewrite the map every time Trump wakes up in a bad mood, and nobody is forcing them to disrespect the history and heritage of tens of millions of people (all while doing everything they can to keep those same people using their products).

Boot-licking is a choice, and "we were just following orders" isn't an excuse.

Want to support a European mapping app?

If this topic has you with your finger hovering above the "delete" button on your Google Maps app, check out Here WeGo (Netherlands) and Mapy (Czechia) for EU-based alternatives.