They'll get their 15 minutes, but there's no _there_ there. They're owned by System1, a bottom-of-the-barrel advertising company where 1990s web brands go to die (Metacrawler? Startpage.com?? Dogpile?!?!). Their maps are OpenStreetMaps maps.
People think they have their back (because OSM is showing Lake Ontario), but it's just marketing.
Or a top of the barrel choice like just using one of the many non-profit FOSS apps that are also UIs over OpenStreetMap instead of one of the scam commercial ad-wrappers.
I think people are more going on the "name it what you want" pages doing the rounds on socials, created originally for the Gulf of Mexico and now Lake Ontario, which a lot of people have seen, rather than the name presented by MapQuest's regular map which I don't think many people see.
Finding MapQuest on the PlayStore was a quest all on its own. More specifically, it does not exist on my PlayStore, and I had to install it on my phone remotely through the browser PlayStore.
Review wise, it sits firmly at a single star, so it's possible that Google burried it, although I would not put it past them to rig things.
As long as tech companies make a stand against superficial culture war fights like this nobody will care that they've caved w.r.t privacy over the last two decades. Sad!
People have nothing in common with tech giants. Tech giants support whoever is in power, because money. The current tech giants kicked the current President off of their platforms back in the day. Now these tech giants hang out at the White House. Funny how that works.
I tried it out for a trip yesterday. I wanted to love the app—it has a great retro feel, and an ad-free subscription option—but it gave me weird routes and the audio was extremely stuttery.
I enjoy how Bing Maps (and Bing in general) are so unloved that it's not even part of the debate. (Bing Maps hasn't changed - yet - but probably will eventually, since they caved on the Gulf of Mexico)
They're one of the few remaining air photography providers for OpenStreetMap editors with worldwide coverage (much of it high quality and regularly updated), so they have their uses.
It’s not like Microsoft has artisanal cartographers sitting around deciding what to call every geographic feature. Bing Maps ingests its base map data from providers, which in turn aggregate a bunch of authoritative, commercial, open, and government datasets.
And for things like official geographic names, government naming databases are often one of the authoritative upstream sources. So if the U.S. government changes the name in its official geographic database, it’s not surprising for that change to eventually propagate through map providers and into Bing.
I get why people want Apple and Google to push back but ultimately there isn’t any logical approach for them to operate that isn’t “name things as the relevant governmental bodies name them”. Otherwise what source of truth is there?
The responsibility here is with a spineless government. An executive order is not a law and a congress that did its job would quickly contract these kind of mad king declarations.
The government has no right to name geographic features. The names are established by popular usage, not the feds. As such Google and Apple should not listen to the demands of a body which has no right to make them in the first place.
What about researchers at universities? Maintain a list of experts and conduct a poll whenever an event like this happens or enough of the experts request.
Or require an act of Congress. Obviously, we can no longer rely on Executive Orders being careful, thought-out, or lasting changes. Does any mapping organization want to change names back and forth? Does any user want to see these changes?
Right but who maintains that list of experts? Google? Aren’t we just giving the tech giants more power in that scenario?
Yes, in this specific instance it would give us an outcome we want. But in the long term we’re replacing democratic government with corporate control. Which doesn’t seem good.
It’s an international body of water that has had the same name for longer than the government that tried to rename it has existed. The renaming was an overtly political act. There are many logical approaches to leaving the name the same, and there is one logical approach to changing it (appeasement)
I've dumped Google Maps for OSM over three years ago and have not looked back. Did this as one of my de-Google steps by choosing a Fairphone.
Looking at a FuriLabs FLX1S to start the next phase by switching to a Linux phone.
I've become a sunk cost to Google by not spending anything on their products or services and always use Ad-Block solution in a private session if I must.
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People think they have their back (because OSM is showing Lake Ontario), but it's just marketing.
I still don't think Google is quite the same, but I agree that they share some fundamental problems and should be rejected as a whole.
So… Google, then?
It's not like it hasn't been repeatedly documented that malware is pushed through Google Ads and other properties.
https://gulfof.mapquest.com/lakeontario/Epstein%20Files
https://gulfof.mapquest.com/gulf/Epstein%20Files
Perhaps it would have died, too
But no
It's ad companies all the way down.
Big fan of a president who changes a 400 year old name on a hissy fit and spends his days shitposting at the level of "dumb teenage boy"?
Review wise, it sits firmly at a single star, so it's possible that Google burried it, although I would not put it past them to rig things.
And for things like official geographic names, government naming databases are often one of the authoritative upstream sources. So if the U.S. government changes the name in its official geographic database, it’s not surprising for that change to eventually propagate through map providers and into Bing.
The responsibility here is with a spineless government. An executive order is not a law and a congress that did its job would quickly contract these kind of mad king declarations.
Or require an act of Congress. Obviously, we can no longer rely on Executive Orders being careful, thought-out, or lasting changes. Does any mapping organization want to change names back and forth? Does any user want to see these changes?
Yes, in this specific instance it would give us an outcome we want. But in the long term we’re replacing democratic government with corporate control. Which doesn’t seem good.
Looking at a FuriLabs FLX1S to start the next phase by switching to a Linux phone.
I've become a sunk cost to Google by not spending anything on their products or services and always use Ad-Block solution in a private session if I must.
(saw it on the internet, had to share)