MEXICO SUES GOOGLE OVER GULF NAME CHANGE
The Mexican government is suing tech giant Google over the Gulf of Mexico name change.
In January, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.
At the time, he said the name change was justified because the US “Do most of the work there, and it’s ours”.
Google went ahead with the name change from Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America for US users on its map service, saying it made the change as part of a “longstanding practice” of following name changes when updated by official government sources.
On Thursday, the House of Representatives voted to officially rename the Gulf for federal agencies as well.
This led to Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum instructing her government to sue Google for ignoring repeated requests not to rename the body of water.
In a letter to Google, Sheinbaum said: “All we want is for the decree issued by the US government to be complied with.”
She added that the US lacks the authority to rename the entire Gulf.
Google made it clear that its map users in the US will see the Gulf of America, but that the map users in other countries will see the Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America).
Image credit: Memedroid