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Mexican President Threatens to Sue Google Over 'Gulf of America' Label on Maps. (www.commondreams.org)

submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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The president of Mexico on Thursday expressed hope that Google "reconsiders" its decision to change its online maps to reflect U.S. President Donald Trump's claim that he has the authority to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico.

Shortly after taking office, Trump issued an executive order announcing he was changing the name of the body of water to the Gulf of America.

For U.S. users of Google Maps, the gulf was listed as the Gulf of America as of Thursday. Google, whose CEO attended Trump's inauguration along with other tech moguls, said last month it has "a long-standing practice of applying name changes when they have been updated in official government sources."

But Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum warned Thursday that her government "will file a civil suit" against Google if it does not revert back to labeling the international body of water the Gulf of Mexico.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Don't sue- just threaten to block some of googles services in your country and they'll come around real quick. Hit em where it hurts. Google isn't hurting for lawyers.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 6 days ago (1 children)

You have to hit them in the wallet. Every time Trump does or says anything about tariffs, just starting increasing tariffs on all Tesla products.

We can't hit Trump directly but we can hit his little friends quite easily.

Musk will have an absolute meltdown on twitter of course, but if you just ignore him he'll give up. He's already shown that he is prepared to back down if he's actually facing financial penalties.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Tragically we have a dried apricot ceding power to the highest bidder. There isn't much for other countries to do directly unless they are paying for "sock puppet time" or getting in a pissing match with a clown that makes a juggalo look smart.

This is more about controlling (collateral) damage: in this case megacorps "kissing the ring" via stupid shit like Google is doing presently. Countries can fuck with corporations far easier than we can (guess who paid for sock puppet time...)

Google is clearly attempting to make themselves more "saleable" to the ruling party by dropping things like month names or renaming universally accepted names of global features. Right now their -baseline- is where we are at currently. A lawsuit does next to nothing. It's an operating cost. A country threatening to blacklist their service will hit them cleanly in the only thing that matters: their shareholders. Our biggest corporations have time and again rolled over for this tactic. They may have elevated themselves to a godlike status within the states but they are vulnerable outside our shores.