5 ms·

Dumb decision from Microsoft. Will they remove country borders from Bing Maps because they might be considered political too?

jey 2y ago
You're not too far from the truth -- most mapping services render political boundaries differently based on where you're accessing the site from.
- strictnein 2y ago
  The Kashmir region north of New Delhi is an interesting example. Even in the US, Google basically says you're on your own, but here's a collection of dotted lines that may or may not be the actual borders.
- int_19h 2y ago
  Or just refuse to commit. E.g. Google Maps, to this day, will not show the country for any Crimean city when you click on it to bring up its info panel. If you do this with e.g. Kherson, you get "Kherson, Kherson Oblast, Ukraine". But if you do it with Sevastopol, you only get the city name, not the region & country. It also shows dotted borders between Crimea and both Russia and Ukraine.
  - IshKebab 2y ago
    Well... that kind of makes sense no? What do you think it should say?
    - LAC-Tech 2y ago
      I want maps to show reality. Not who they *think* should be in control of Taiwan or Transnistria, but who actually is.
      - lmm 2y ago
        What does "actually in control" mean? When the IRA set up a checkpoint in Rosslea, should that have moved the border on the map? When there are disputes over uninhabited islands, do you want it to show whoever visited first? Obviously these are small examples, but the same issues apply to full-scale civil wars. You'd also be essentially legitimising the right of conquest if as soon as country A invades country B you move the border on the map. That would be pretty counterproductive.
        jim-jim-jim 2y ago
        > You'd also be essentially legitimising the right of conquest Documenting reality doesn't endorse what happened. Istanbul was Constantinople. Shit happens. If I'm travelling, I'd much rather the flags and borders reflect the situation on the ground instead of making meaningless humanitarian gestures.
        lmm 2y ago
        It's the opposite of meaningless. Delegitimising wars of conquest massively reduced them and was a big part of why the 20th century was so much more peaceful on the whole (yes, even with the giant wars that did take place) than those before it.
        IshKebab 2y ago
        That's a very big and dubious claim! I'd like to see some evidence for that.
        rpd9803 2y ago
        Even Old New York used to be call New Amsterdam..
        makeitdouble 2y ago
        > Documenting reality The issue is reality not being settled or agreed upon. For disputed territories there is effectively two realities both officially backed by sovereign countries. You can come up with some arbitrary criteria to split the difference, but your reality would break when you effectively set foot in a spot that works under the competing assumption.
  - andix 2y ago
    Isn’t Google Maps blocked in Russia anyway? Crimea is a different story, as many countries recognize it to be in some kind of limbo and treat it as neither Russian nor Ukrainian. I think Yandex (Russian Google) removed borders completely from their maps. Also because it’s impossible to figure out where the Russian government would like them to be. Might change on a daily basis. Google maps added the „gulf of America“ to their US version, because anywhere else it’s still the Gulf of Mexico (even in iOS autocorrect, it changed it correctly to uppercase).
    - riffraff 2y ago
      the "gulf of america" thing is Google pandering to Trump, they originally had a policy of only using the popular name in a given locale. > if a ruler announced that henceforth the Pacific Ocean would be named after her mother, we would not add that placemark unless and until the name came into common usage. https://publicpolicy.googleblog.com/2008/04/how-google-determines-names-for-bodies.html https://publicpolicy.googleblog.com/2008/04/how-google-deter...
      - neuronexmachina 2y ago
        I think they mostly started with geolocation-dependent names in the early 2010s, e.g. Kashmir and Palestine.
        riffraff 2y ago
        that's different, they had location-dependent names at the time of this article too, the issue is specifically about the fact that even if you have location-dependent names you'd use the name that is commonly used in that location, not an arbitrary regulation name.
        owlninja 2y ago
        I thought they used the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) from the USGS. If this buffoonery does pass, it will reflect in the government official data source - and thus on Google maps?
fweimer 2y ago
They removed country borders from the time zone selection in a Windows 95 update: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20030822-00/?p=42823 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20030822-00/?p=42... In Bing Maps, I expect them change country borders based on localization settings, but that was probably too onerous to implement and test in the Windows 95 days.
- LeoPanthera 2y ago
  I remember when this happened, which I guess makes me very old. They didn't actually remove the map - they just removed any functionality it had. So the time set window is massive for no reason, it contains this huge world map bitmap that no longer does anything.
  - Kwpolska 2y ago
    Almost nothing, it scrolls horizontally to show the selected time zone in the middle.
    - canucker2016 2y ago
      Think of the dev/test/PM people who worked on this feature. It's not a standard Windows control, so there had to be lots of work to get the timezone boundaries, map to values usable for their world map bitmap, iterate a bit on the behaviour for when the user clicks at x,y on the map, et. al. The elation of shipping the minor feature, followed a few months later, with the realization that most of that work is going to be neutered.
  - jeroenhd 2y ago
    They eventually did remove part of the map: because of politics and timing, Poland was accidentally removed despite the map time zone picker no longer working, because the dedicated Polish timezone the green pixels were attached to were removed.
SpicyLemonZest 2y ago
Basically any large platform that renders map data realizes pretty quickly that you have to adjust it country by country to accommodate everyone’s irredentist claims and naming disputes. I suppose there’s no reason they couldn’t ship different system fonts to different countries, but that introduces a lot of annoyance and room for error for a somewhat marginal use case.
andix 2y ago
It’s the reality of doing business all around the world. Either you chose sides, create different releases of software for some countries (deployment nightmare), or just remove such „sensitive“ features.
- immibis 2y ago
  BTW the USA is now one of these "sensitive countries" where apps have to lie to legally do business. Just like Chinese users see Taiwan labeled as China, American users see (or will soon see) the Gulf of Mexico labeled as the Gulf of America.
  - SllX 2y ago
    Two things: 1) Don’t lie. Apps don’t have to “lie” to do business in America. If someone labels the Gulf as the “Gulf of Mexico”, there’s not really a goddamn thing the Federal Government can do about it except throw a shit fit. The fullest extent that they can enforce this is on contractors making products and services specifically for the Federal Government’s and Military’s own use. 2) Maps apps are probably going to relabel it as the Gulf of America anyway within America, and it’s not exactly a lie. Barring any issue with Congress, if there’s some statute buried somewhere that legally enforces the name of the Gulf to be the Gulf of Mexico, it isn’t exactly a lie if the President exercising the authority of the Office of the President renames a geographical feature that’s at least partly touched by the US. There’s a lot of geographical features that have different names either in different languages, different locales or both, and it’s fully within the Executive branch’s purview to name them. They do so all the time, although typically for the more obscure things nowadays since for anything too prominent, the name was decided long ago. Maps apps can set their own policy on this, but generally the easiest course of action is to defer to governing authorities.
    - nottorp 2y ago
      So it's only bad when the Chinese or Russians do it? :)
      - 2y ago
wodenokoto 2y ago
I believe google maps have already implemented the Gulf of America for US users.
est 2y ago
In case you aren't aware, the "Gulf of Mexico" thing just happenned few days ago. https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2025/01/28/gulf-mexico-google-maps-america-mckinley-denali/77990503007/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2025/01/28/gulf-mexico-g...

jey 2y ago

You're not too far from the truth -- most mapping services render political boundaries differently based on where you're accessing the site from.

strictnein 2y ago
The Kashmir region north of New Delhi is an interesting example. Even in the US, Google basically says you're on your own, but here's a collection of dotted lines that may or may not be the actual borders.
int_19h 2y ago
Or just refuse to commit. E.g. Google Maps, to this day, will not show the country for any Crimean city when you click on it to bring up its info panel. If you do this with e.g. Kherson, you get "Kherson, Kherson Oblast, Ukraine". But if you do it with Sevastopol, you only get the city name, not the region & country. It also shows dotted borders between Crimea and both Russia and Ukraine.
- IshKebab 2y ago
  Well... that kind of makes sense no? What do you think it should say?
  - LAC-Tech 2y ago
    I want maps to show reality. Not who they *think* should be in control of Taiwan or Transnistria, but who actually is.
    - lmm 2y ago
      What does "actually in control" mean? When the IRA set up a checkpoint in Rosslea, should that have moved the border on the map? When there are disputes over uninhabited islands, do you want it to show whoever visited first? Obviously these are small examples, but the same issues apply to full-scale civil wars. You'd also be essentially legitimising the right of conquest if as soon as country A invades country B you move the border on the map. That would be pretty counterproductive.
      - jim-jim-jim 2y ago
        > You'd also be essentially legitimising the right of conquest Documenting reality doesn't endorse what happened. Istanbul was Constantinople. Shit happens. If I'm travelling, I'd much rather the flags and borders reflect the situation on the ground instead of making meaningless humanitarian gestures.
        lmm 2y ago
        It's the opposite of meaningless. Delegitimising wars of conquest massively reduced them and was a big part of why the 20th century was so much more peaceful on the whole (yes, even with the giant wars that did take place) than those before it.
        IshKebab 2y ago
        That's a very big and dubious claim! I'd like to see some evidence for that.
        rpd9803 2y ago
        Even Old New York used to be call New Amsterdam..
        makeitdouble 2y ago
        > Documenting reality The issue is reality not being settled or agreed upon. For disputed territories there is effectively two realities both officially backed by sovereign countries. You can come up with some arbitrary criteria to split the difference, but your reality would break when you effectively set foot in a spot that works under the competing assumption.
- andix 2y ago
  Isn’t Google Maps blocked in Russia anyway? Crimea is a different story, as many countries recognize it to be in some kind of limbo and treat it as neither Russian nor Ukrainian. I think Yandex (Russian Google) removed borders completely from their maps. Also because it’s impossible to figure out where the Russian government would like them to be. Might change on a daily basis. Google maps added the „gulf of America“ to their US version, because anywhere else it’s still the Gulf of Mexico (even in iOS autocorrect, it changed it correctly to uppercase).
  - riffraff 2y ago
    the "gulf of america" thing is Google pandering to Trump, they originally had a policy of only using the popular name in a given locale. > if a ruler announced that henceforth the Pacific Ocean would be named after her mother, we would not add that placemark unless and until the name came into common usage. https://publicpolicy.googleblog.com/2008/04/how-google-determines-names-for-bodies.html https://publicpolicy.googleblog.com/2008/04/how-google-deter...
    - neuronexmachina 2y ago
      I think they mostly started with geolocation-dependent names in the early 2010s, e.g. Kashmir and Palestine.
      - riffraff 2y ago
        that's different, they had location-dependent names at the time of this article too, the issue is specifically about the fact that even if you have location-dependent names you'd use the name that is commonly used in that location, not an arbitrary regulation name.
        owlninja 2y ago
        I thought they used the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) from the USGS. If this buffoonery does pass, it will reflect in the government official data source - and thus on Google maps?

fweimer 2y ago

They removed country borders from the time zone selection in a Windows 95 update: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20030822-00/?p=42823 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20030822-00/?p=42... In Bing Maps, I expect them change country borders based on localization settings, but that was probably too onerous to implement and test in the Windows 95 days.

LeoPanthera 2y ago
I remember when this happened, which I guess makes me very old. They didn't actually remove the map - they just removed any functionality it had. So the time set window is massive for no reason, it contains this huge world map bitmap that no longer does anything.
- Kwpolska 2y ago
  Almost nothing, it scrolls horizontally to show the selected time zone in the middle.
  - canucker2016 2y ago
    Think of the dev/test/PM people who worked on this feature. It's not a standard Windows control, so there had to be lots of work to get the timezone boundaries, map to values usable for their world map bitmap, iterate a bit on the behaviour for when the user clicks at x,y on the map, et. al. The elation of shipping the minor feature, followed a few months later, with the realization that most of that work is going to be neutered.
- jeroenhd 2y ago
  They eventually did remove part of the map: because of politics and timing, Poland was accidentally removed despite the map time zone picker no longer working, because the dedicated Polish timezone the green pixels were attached to were removed.

SpicyLemonZest 2y ago

Basically any large platform that renders map data realizes pretty quickly that you have to adjust it country by country to accommodate everyone’s irredentist claims and naming disputes. I suppose there’s no reason they couldn’t ship different system fonts to different countries, but that introduces a lot of annoyance and room for error for a somewhat marginal use case.

andix 2y ago

It’s the reality of doing business all around the world. Either you chose sides, create different releases of software for some countries (deployment nightmare), or just remove such „sensitive“ features.

immibis 2y ago
BTW the USA is now one of these "sensitive countries" where apps have to lie to legally do business. Just like Chinese users see Taiwan labeled as China, American users see (or will soon see) the Gulf of Mexico labeled as the Gulf of America.
- SllX 2y ago
  Two things: 1) Don’t lie. Apps don’t have to “lie” to do business in America. If someone labels the Gulf as the “Gulf of Mexico”, there’s not really a goddamn thing the Federal Government can do about it except throw a shit fit. The fullest extent that they can enforce this is on contractors making products and services specifically for the Federal Government’s and Military’s own use. 2) Maps apps are probably going to relabel it as the Gulf of America anyway within America, and it’s not exactly a lie. Barring any issue with Congress, if there’s some statute buried somewhere that legally enforces the name of the Gulf to be the Gulf of Mexico, it isn’t exactly a lie if the President exercising the authority of the Office of the President renames a geographical feature that’s at least partly touched by the US. There’s a lot of geographical features that have different names either in different languages, different locales or both, and it’s fully within the Executive branch’s purview to name them. They do so all the time, although typically for the more obscure things nowadays since for anything too prominent, the name was decided long ago. Maps apps can set their own policy on this, but generally the easiest course of action is to defer to governing authorities.
  - nottorp 2y ago
    So it's only bad when the Chinese or Russians do it? :)
    - 2y ago

wodenokoto 2y ago

I believe google maps have already implemented the Gulf of America for US users.

est 2y ago

In case you aren't aware, the "Gulf of Mexico" thing just happenned few days ago. https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2025/01/28/gulf-mexico-google-maps-america-mckinley-denali/77990503007/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2025/01/28/gulf-mexico-g...