Google faces backlash over Donald Trump’s Gulf of America order

Google is back at the intersection of a geopolitical battle over the renaming of the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of the United States.

The company’s decision to follow Trump’s orders on Google Maps promptly sparked a backlash from Mexico. There, leaders are threatening legal action against the company.

This isn’t the first time Google has faced a dispute over a geographical name change, but experts say that Pandora’s box of questions about how this can help major tech companies shape global narratives It says to open.

“Google, along with other major platforms, will have a great influence on how people perceive geography, history and political reality,” he said, adding that Australia’s cyber affairs and critical technology. said Tobias Feakin, ambassador of the company.

“What you see on the map is not just data, it shapes a global narrative. When Google changes its name it effectively validates its political stance without intentionally,” he continued.

Shortly after renaming Trump’s executive order to Water, the US Geographical Name Information System (GNIS) officially urged Google Maps to track it down to US users.

People in the US Only view now The “Gulf of America” ​​label on the map means that Mexican users will consider their name to be the “Gulf of Mexico” and elsewhere in the world will see the “Gulf of Mexico.”

Apple Maps and Bing Maps have been updated to accommodate the changes.

Google Keep it what it has A long-standing practice of applying name changes when updated with official government sources, as GNIS did. According to Google’s policy, if the official name differs from country to country, users will see the official local name.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has quickly resisted change and threatened to file a lawsuit against Google, claiming that the Gulf executive order, which applies only to areas on the continental shelf under US control, is arguing. It is claiming.

Shanebaum said on Monday that Google’s move violated her country’s sovereignty, but that she’ll wait until she gets another response from the tech companies before moving forward in the suit.

“What Google is doing here is to rename the continental shelves in Mexico and Cuba. This has nothing to do with Trump’s orders that apply only to shelves in the US,” Simbaum said. told reporters Monday.

Trump’s order, entitled “Restoring a name that honors America’s greatness,” “revised the name only within his own continental shelf,” she added.

According to sovereignty restrictions, Database Of the international boundaries, the US controls about 46% of the Gulf, while Mexico controls about 49% and Cuba controls about 5%.

When asked about Sinbaum’s claim, White House officials pointed the hill towards the order text. This states that the US Gulf label will “apply to shelf areas of the US continental continent surrounded by the US continental shelf areas, with the northeast, north and northwest being surrounded by the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, It extends to the ocean boundary between Mexico and Cuba in Alabama and Florida, a region previously named the Gulf of Mexico.”

The backlash against Google is because tech companies continue to have more influence in the wider society. This growth will increase the power in the way geopolitics and geography influence politics and diplomacy.

“High-tech companies are no longer involved in geopolitics, they are shaping it,” said Feakin, who explores the intersection of geopolitics and its intersections with altitude and emerging technologies. It’s there.

“The fact that the US government’s decision was quickly reflected in Google’s mapping services raises questions about digital sovereignty, especially for countries like Mexico, which challenge change,” he added. .

Digital sovereignty refers to how a country or region controls digital infrastructure and technology.

As a global company, Google is at a crossroads as it tries to balance the competitive interests of various countries.

Lowell Gustafson, a professor of political science with a focus on Latin America, stressed at the end of the day that Google is still a business that needs to keep financial interests in mind.

“They are protecting themselves. So, if I were given the power to take charge of Google, what would I do in their situation? Will I put my company at risk, and On which hill shall I die? What battle shall I choose?” he said. “If I were there with them, I think this is a battle to fight another day. Trump will never be here.”

The California-based company has tried to protect itself by postponing the official government definition, but experts say this is about what they are doing and who they want to start from. He said it does not prevent the question from arising.

“This case highlights a growing dilemma: are technology companies neutral arbitrators of information or expansion of national power?” Feinkin said. “The more governments recognize the strategic value of digital platforms, the more pressure these companies face on their sides.”

Google Maps is one of the most used map and navigation platforms, boasting over 2 billion users each month around the world.

The Trump administration has acted against other companies that do not use the “Gulf of America,” particularly those using the Associated Press. This was prohibited from Air Force 1 and the oval office and refused to use the terminology in the first reference.

The style of the AP is to refer to the body of water as the Gulf of Mexico in its first reference. Because it is called in other countries and is familiar to many AP readers.

It is not clear whether the Trump administration’s communications with Google, Apple or other mapping platforms are about changes.

Nevertheless, it comes in Silicon Valley’s settlement with Trump after years of tension as businesses want a favorable treatment for his second term.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai was one of several technical leaders who attended Trump’s inauguration.

This is not the first time Google has looked at legal action over its map label selection.

2012, Iran Threatened to sue Google Because they do not label the waters that separate Iran and adjacent Arab Gulf states into map platforms. Iran calls the waters the Persian Gulf, and Arab countries usually call it the Arab Gulf.

And after the annexation of Russia’s Crimea in 2014, Russia’s Google Maps showed It was shown that Crimea as part of Russian territory, but in Ukraine and other parts of the world, Crimea did not have a bounded border between Ukraine and Russia.

When asked if Google Maps could move forward with the Gulf, Feakin might be led to think other governments could potentially make tech companies follow their preferences He expressed concern that he had not expressed.

“The incident could put pressure on the government to create digital boundaries on technology companies and set precedents that match the geopolitical agenda. To promote further renaming of conflict zones, others “We can burn the government of the government,” he said.

“It could lead to the suppression of historical place names in favour of politically motivated change and more aggressive state control over the digital representation of geography and history.”

Amelia Kiddle, an associate professor of Latin American Studies at the University of Calgary, said Google’s movements “feels very strange to other parts of the world,” and that place names are changing frequently.

Trump’s order is “a deliberate misrepresentation of history that serves current political purposes,” she said.