I agree that HN is not the place for that, but on the other hand a lot of his policies have very real effects on a lot of people, so not everyone can afford to ignore him. And while this one policy doesn't really impact anyone, it does serve to prove to the rest of the world how self-centered he is.
Why would they do that? Their goal is to stay in the good graces of the administration, to avoid financial or legal retribution.
If you think conscientious resistance is anywhere on the agenda of these corporations, I'd refer you to the inauguration photos and donation list, and the various acts of public supplication by their executives.
I don't even think it's wrong for them to do any of that - at least now the mask is off - but people should stop looking to corporations to take moral stances, despite their attempts over decades to convince you to attribute morality to them.
OpenStreetMap keeps a collection of tags for each node, including "official names," so in that sense it does include records of these arbitrary renamings, but there are rules about naming things and to solve disputes/edit wars[1] (most commonly, the "on the ground" rule that reflects real world usage[2]). For example, see the Gulf of Mexico node[3], its wiki page[4], and the discussion following the executive order to rename it[5].
Fiduciary responsibility seems to mean that one has no choice but to follow orders if under threat - something that is worth remembering when it seems that corporate power is larger than state power.
Also shows how a lot of people making moves in the short term, especially if they “have no choice”, leads to acquiescence of totalitarianism. It seems we have no belief in collective power.
I hate it, but my guess is if they don't play ball here, they risk losing government contracts or worse, being blacklisted as a "supply chain threat" as they tried to do with Anthropic. Gov't/military canceling GCP and Gemini contracts probably wouldn't do well for their stock.
I feel like there's a way to make a policy that is "We update all geographies within America at 4 years, once a rename has had time to make it into the common parlance."
But whatever, every such scar he leaves will just be on the list of reminders of why he was the worst president in history, and likely haunt the party for decades.
FWIW, I worked on map rendering in a past life at another large tech company. General policy was to show "official" names and borders based on the user's country. It wasn't quite that clean, but IIRC there were a surprising number of disputed borders and place names in the world.
"Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect."
~ Frank Wilhoit
The province Ontario was named after the lake, not vice versa. It's kind of absurd to rename this lake in particular just because it seems the least American-sounding.
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[ 0.26 ms ] story [ 6.8 ms ] threadIf you think conscientious resistance is anywhere on the agenda of these corporations, I'd refer you to the inauguration photos and donation list, and the various acts of public supplication by their executives.
I don't even think it's wrong for them to do any of that - at least now the mask is off - but people should stop looking to corporations to take moral stances, despite their attempts over decades to convince you to attribute morality to them.
They’re just treated as cultural localizations, internally.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49510464#49511011
Emmanuel Goldstein's work: From 1984 by George Orwell.
THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF OLIGARCHICAL COLLECTIVISM [0]
PDF download: [1]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Theory_and_Practice_of_Oli...
[1] https://archive.org/download/the-theory-and-practice-of-olig...
[1]: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Disputes
[2]: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Good_practice#Map_what's...
[3]: https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/305639190/history/143
[4]: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Mexico
[5]: https://community.openstreetmap.org/t/gulf-of-america-gulf-o...
Also shows how a lot of people making moves in the short term, especially if they “have no choice”, leads to acquiescence of totalitarianism. It seems we have no belief in collective power.
But whatever, every such scar he leaves will just be on the list of reminders of why he was the worst president in history, and likely haunt the party for decades.
https://verdict.justia.com/2026/08/31/renaming-lake-ontario-...
As an American, I offer my apology to Canada and the world for this action.
/s