Mexico Threatens To Sue Google Over ‘Gulf Of America’ Change

Too Much Free Time

from the why-is-everyone-an-idiot? dept

America, which used to be a serious country run by adults, has since devolved into something else. We were just talking about how the White House had made the brilliant decision to bar AP News reporters from all kinds of official briefings. Why? Well, because the AP refused to update its influential Stylebook to refer to the Gulf of Mexico by its newly dictated and entirely made up name, the “Gulf of America.” That’s when this all moved beyond pure pettiness and into our realm, as this is both dangerous from a general freedom of speech and the press capacity, but also about as clear a First Amendment violation as you’re going to see.

But that doesn’t mean that the pettiness has ended, of course. Nor does it mean that such pettiness on an international level won’t reveal just how small too many very important world leaders are. To whit: the Mexican government has indicated that it plans to sue Google over the reflection of the name change in Google Maps. And while that sounds picayune enough on its own, you really have to read some of the comments from these government officials to appreciate just how stupid this all is.

“What Google is doing here is changing the name of the continental shelf of Mexico and Cuba, which has nothing to do with Trump’s decree, which applied only to the US continental shelf,” [President] Sheinbaum told reporters. “We do not agree with this, and the Foreign Minister has sent a new letter addressing the issue.”

Sheinbaum said the renaming is “incorrect,” adding that Trump’s decree “only changed the name within his own continental shelf, which extends 22 nautical miles from the US coast—not the entire Gulf.”

Yes, pointing out just how small and petty Trump’s executive order is would be pretty great… were it not then followed by a sovereign nation taking the time to officially send letters to Google over it. Notably, Google only really changed the naming for those searching from within the United States. If you’re in Mexico and you Google map this body of water, it’s labeled “Gulf of Mexico.” That doesn’t make the re-labeling in America any less stupid, of course, especially when you consider that in every other country beyond these two, the map will display both names. As though they were historically co-equal.

Again, very stupid. And very small. So small, in fact, that Mexico isn’t even demanding that Google simply respect the historical name of this body of water, one that has stood for literal centuries. No, they just want Google to push the boundry back a bit.

Sheinbaum said Mexico is now sending a new letter back to Google, which reads “any reference to the ‘Gulf of America’ initiative on your Google Maps platform must be strictly limited to the marine area under U.S. jurisdiction.”

“Any extension beyond that zone exceeds the authority of any national government or private entity. Should that be the case, the Government of Mexico will take the appropriate legal actions as deemed necessary,” it added.

I promise you, Trump is absolutely delighted at this reaction. He wants this fight. His base will eat it up and the idea that Mexico is going to get anywhere legally here is absurd. Where are they going to file suit? What court would be authoritative for something like this?

And, perhaps most importantly, why can’t we just name it the “Gulf of Who Gives A Shit?” and be done with all of this?

Filed Under: claudia sheinbaum, gulf of mexico, mexico
Companies: google