Google Maps users in the U.S. will now see “Gulf of America” displayed over the body of water that was once labeled the “Gulf of Mexico.”
Users in Mexico will still see the name “Gulf of Mexico,” and users elsewhere in the world will see both names, written as “Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America).”
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The change follows President Trump’s Donald TrumpTrump expresses confidence Democrats will help extend tax cutsRubio: US walking away from ‘foreign aid that is dumb’The Memo: Trump, allies ramp up attacks on courtsMore(Donald Trump)directive on Jan. 20, his first day in office, to rename the gulf to include America’s name. The executive order instructed the Department of the Interior to take all steps necessary to make the change official.
Donald TrumpTrump expresses confidence Democrats will help extend tax cutsRubio: US walking away from ‘foreign aid that is dumb’The Memo: Trump, allies ramp up attacks on courtsMore(Donald Trump)
The Interior Department on Jan. 24 issued a press release saying that “the Gulf of Mexico will now officially be known as the Gulf of America.”
The department said the U.S. Board on Geographic Names was working “expeditiously” to update the names of these features in the U.S. Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) and that the changes are “effective immediately for federal use.”
Some Google Calendar users are angrily calling the company out after noticing that certain events like Pride month are no longer highlighted by default. Black History Month, Indigenous People Month, Jewish Heritage, Holocaust Remembrance Day, and Hispanic Heritage have also been removed, according to a Google product expert.
Google is joining Meta, Amazon, and other big tech companies in winding down its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs.
In a Wednesday memo to employees that I obtained (and you can read below), Google’s head of HR, Fiona Cicconi, said there will no longer be DEI hiring targets due to the company’s status as a federal contractor and recent “court decisions and US Executive Orders on this topic.” As The Wall Street Journal notes, Google also removed a line included in previous annual SEC reports saying that it’s “committed to making diversity, equity, and inclusion part of everything we do.”
Google announced Tuesday that it is overhauling the principles governing how it uses artificial intelligence and other advanced technology. The company removed language promising not to pursue “technologies that cause or are likely to cause overall harm,” “weapons or other technologies whose principal purpose or implementation is to cause or directly facilitate injury to people,” “technologies that gather or use information for surveillance violating internationally accepted norms,” and “technologies whose purpose contravenes widely accepted principles of international law and human rights.”
Google Maps, the most popular mapping software in the world, said on Monday evening that it will begin using new names for two prominent geographical features in North America, the Gulf of Mexico and Mount Denali. As soon as "they have been updated in official government sources," Google said on the social media site X, it would change the names of these features to the Gulf of America and Mount McKinley.
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Like a number of other tech leaders, Google chief executive Sundar Pichai has been seeking to develop a closer relationship with Trump since his election. Pichai was among the tech leaders at Trump's inauguration last week, and he also met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago before he took office. Mar-a-Lago, by the way, is located on the Atlantic coast of Florida, which is opposite from the state's Gulf of Mexico shoreline.