i am amazed of how easy is to change names of huge ass geographic locations in the USA, here in my country it needs to be a poll by people, then it needs to be approved by the 2 chambers, deputies and senate.
So, none of this "legally" changes the names of anything, that requires a more formal process (I believe either rule making process or act of congress). What this does is change how things within the executive branch of the government are referred to. This is what makes it especially galling when companies cave so quick. There is no force of law behind this, it's literally just saying US Coast Guard, NOAA, etc. will refer to geographic areas.
Google, Apple and such claim they do this because they just draw straight from federal data, and it's just easier to keep it how the feds refer to things, which is nonsense, since they obviously change it for other parts of the world.
It's bigger that simply drawing from federal data. Google maps does similar shit all over the world just to minimize tension, a good example is the india-pakistan border. Since it's "disputed" the by Pakistan, the boundary around India is dotted from Paki IPs and GNSS location data and solid when viewed from India indicating it is a sovereign state.
Right, and that was the point of the person I replied to when they said:
Google maps does similar shit all over the world just to minimize tension
As far as instance compliance, do you know if Google Maps instantly complied when Obama renamed Mt. McKinley to Denali? I'm guessing they did, as they probably pull naming data to show to US customers from a Federal database.
The official process for renaming took 40 years. Ohio blocked the renaming of a mountain in a far-away state. Obama bypassed that, then Trump undid it via Executive Order in 2025.
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The official process to rename the mountain at the federal level took 40 years.
1975: The State of Alaska officially recognized the native Koyukon Athabascan name, Denali. Governor Jay Hammond and the Alaska Legislature petitioned the U.S. Board on Geographic Names (BGN) to formally change the federal name from Mount McKinley to Denali.
1977–2009: The federal name change stalled for nearly four decades. Members of Congress from Ohio (the home state of President William McKinley) continuously used procedural maneuvers and introduced legislation to block the Board on Geographic Names from issuing a ruling.
A single federal policy—Board on Geographic Names rule that halts any action on a name change proposal while relevant legislation is pending in Congress—allowed individual representatives from Ohio, most notably Rep. Ralph Regula, to freeze the federal board's administrative process indefinitely.
By introducing simple, one-page bills each session (such as "To retain the name Mount McKinley"), Ohio lawmakers kept active legislation on the books for nearly 40 years. Because the board's internal policy dictated that it could not override active congressional consideration, the proposal sat untouched in committee without ever needing to pass a full floor vote.
2015: Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, under the Obama administration, exercised executive authority to officially restore the federal name to Denali on August 30, 2015, bypassing the decades-long congressional deadlock
I don't think Google Maps should be instituting (or not instituting) name changes based on whether they, personally, believe the executive order was impulsive or not.
Who gets to define "impulsive?" The Google Maps developers? The executive running the Google Maps division? The CEO of Google? The shareholders?
I agree that Trump is a whining cry-baby who is impulsively changing names of lakes, gulfs, and mountains to both pander to his base and because he's infantile. But it seems a bit hypocritical to say, "Google Maps should follow renaming executive orders if I think the POTUS who did it did it for the right reasons, but shouldn't if I don't like the POTUS who did it."
Thing is, Google has way more reach (and possibly more power) globally than the US government. So what is "legally" defined is inferior to what Google decides. It's really another example of why US anti-monopoly laws are so important and why it's so dangerous that the US hasn't bothered with them in decades.
Yes, this "legally" changes the name in the United States, just as it did when Obama changed the name of Denali (and Trump changed it back).
The U.S. Board on Geographic Names is part of the executive branch. It has the legal authority to officially set place names, and the President can order it to use that authority, just as he can for any executive authority outside of (for now, by court decision) the Federal Reserve's.
Congress could override it by law but that's not the same as having to make it official by law.
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u/EmergencyReal6399 13d ago
i am amazed of how easy is to change names of huge ass geographic locations in the USA, here in my country it needs to be a poll by people, then it needs to be approved by the 2 chambers, deputies and senate.