On Tuesday, Apple and Microsoft joined Google in updating their online maps to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. The change comes after an executive order from President Donald Trump ordered government mapmakers to change the way maps refer to the body of water.
Tech companies have also taken other actions that align with the Trump administration’s priorities, like ending diversity, equity and inclusion programs, and removing cultural observances from Google Calendar.
Tech expert Omar Gallaga says the three tech giants applied the new name, based on an update to Geographic Names Information System (or GNIS) data, ordered by the president.
Highlights from this segment:
– Google was the first company to adopt the “Gulf of America” designation, causing some who opposed the change to consider switching map providers. Microsoft and Apple subsequently adopted the new name.
– Google users discovered this week that several cultural events, including Black History Month and Holocaust Remembrance Day, had been removed from Google Calendar. The company said it began making the change last summer because the number of events on the calendar was unsustainable. Because some users discovered the change this week, it was believed that the changes had to do with appeasing the Trump administration and its anti-DEI efforts.
A previous version of this story mistakenly referred to the naming system cited by the tech companies as the “National Geographic Data System.” This has been corrected.
