Google rolled out the Lake America change on Saturday, while the official US government maps are still waiting.
So fwiw, the change was made official and updated in GNIS the day it changed on Google Maps, which uses GNIS behind the scenes. That same day, USGS said the name had taken effect in GNIS but that it was waiting for its maps to visually update.
I think this is a product of Google’s infrastructure being faster to automatically update with GNIS changes. The fact they didn’t step in to override it already shows that they’re willing to go along with this; I don’t think the fact it changed before USGS adds any significance to that bootlicking.
That is, I don’t assume Google manually intervened to make this happen faster.
Still, fuck Google Maps. I’m glad people are waking up to how this level of hegemony over maps gives corporations too much power.
I keep seeing this around. I’ve got friends at Google who have shared screenshots about the manual pull request (code change) that was made to update the name. They even have an internal shortlink pointing to that manual change since it’s so dumb
Why is a lake name stored in code versus a database?
i wonder how many canadians that were sitting on the fence about de-googling are no longer sitting on that fence…
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start by changing your default search, google ai overviews made it useless anyways. check out duck duck go or startpage
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stop using google spyware browser (chrome and all chrome builds) and switch to firefox (or preferably a privacy focused fork, i.e. waterfox, librewolf
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learn linux… quit windows
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self-host your own server and run your own localized, private apps, immich instead of google photos, vaultwarden instead of password manager, jellyfin instead of netflix, etc.
5.???
- profit!!!
The problem is, “who wants to be a computer admin?” To which Google says, “I’ll be yours (and I’ll narc on you too for ads and IC).”
Yeahhhhh… I was actually just thinking about this the other day, and kinda realized that a lot of people in my dad’s generation cosplayed as lawn maintenance landscapers in their spare time, I larp sysadmin
Duckduckgo is backed by microsoft/bing which they have a contract with.
Startpage is the duckduck alternative that uses google, its unknown wether they have a contract.
These places are still better then google/bing themselves but people often wrongfully assume that they provide a privacy oriented service.
If you really want to go anticorporate you can host your own searxng, which still by default uses results from google and bing but can be configured to use any on your preference and its code open to verify that they do not give exclusive permission to certain paying corporations.
Using searxng it can happen that some google result could not be retrieved because of api limits… one has to wonder why Startpage does not have those limits.
people often wrongfully assume that they provide a privacy oriented service.
What do you think they provide then? DDG sits between me and Bing, the latter doesn’t get my data.
Microsoft does get your data. This is why i wrote that comment.
Read the wikipedia entry. Microsoft and ddg have a long standing openly known about deal.
Microsoft allows ddg to block bing trackers since 2022, ddg has always allowed them till then. but they must be getting something else to change that policy. No way microsoft is just giving api acces out of being good.
Its getting tired to repeat myself, which are verifiable facts.
Microsoft does get your data
they must be getting something else
which are verifiable facts
“My source is that I decided it must be true.”
You realize that DDG is a commercial company and they use part of the revenue to pay for third-party services they use? Or did you think they just run the service for shits and giggles?
You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make them drink.
I think the words of Gabriel Weinberg ( founder of ddg) as recorded on Wikipedia is a reliable source but you don’t have to believe him.
Show me where Weinberg said that DDG continues to allow MS’ trackers to this day, or sends them other data, which is what you claim, continuing to weasel out of supporting it with any evidence except for “I feel that way”.
Besides, you must have missed that the trackers affair was about the DDG browser, whereas this thread is about the search engine.
Again for clarity i think its fine that people use ddg, its betters then bing and google. But the absolute trust people seem to have is wild considering all of this. I occasionally use both ddg and startpage myself
The summary of my evidence is the hyperlink in my first comment.
Back on topic;
Hé doesn’t say that, the trackers are being blocked since 2022 since microsoft agreed to change the policy. Thats also in my original link
I guess you could believe this was unrelated that this happened just after it became a scandal but i am not that naive.
As a response to the scandal the ceo has the following to say.
For non-search tracker blocking (eg in our browser), we block most third-party trackers. Unfortunately our Microsoft search syndication agreement prevents us from doing more to Microsoft-owned properties. However, we have been continually pushing and expect to be doing more soon.
Bleeping computers, who originally ran this story hit the nail on its head with
“While DuckDuckGo has been transparent regarding the advertisement partnership with Microsoft, it is not clear why they did not disclose the allowing of Microsoft trackers until a security researcher discovered it.
This revelation comes at the wrong time, as DuckDuckGo recently went after Google for their new ‘Topics’ and ‘FLEDGE’ tracking methods, saying, “Google says they’re better for privacy, but the simple fact is tracking is tracking, no matter what you call it.”
Especially that last part is something ddg seemed to really want to forget cause after the ceo came with the following.
"We have always been extremely careful to never promise anonymity when browsing, because that frankly isn’t possible given how quickly trackers change how they work to evade protections and the tools we currently offer. When most other browsers on the market talk about tracking protection, they are usually referring to 3rd-party cookie protection and fingerprinting protection, and our browsers for iOS, Android, and our new Mac beta, impose these restrictions on third-party tracking scripts, including those from Microsoft.
Thats a huge leap in attitude from tracking is tracking…
You are allowed to trust this guy, i see no reason why anyone would and i am gonna continue to get people to remain critical.
On the browser, i legit didn’t know there where 2 products but i don’t think that matters regardless trusting this corporation.
qwant together with ecosia are working on establishing a fully independent search index but at this point it is really in its early days, with focus on France and Germany.
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Boot licking fascist cowards.
Gross
I’d guess the calculus was something like:
Our users don’t want this thing
Fuck em, we’re a monopoly
the famously petty would-be dictator wants this thing
Do what he says, he could really hit our bottom line if he wants to
I started deleting all my Google data yesterday
It’s going to take me a long time to De-Google but you have the right idea.
It’s annoying that it’s not easier. I should be able to go to some European or Canadian competitor and at least know that I am not giving my data directly to US data brokers. Why aren’t there more options? You can’t tell me the US is the only one who has tech knowledge.
A lot of Americans would instantly jump to a Chinese competitor if they offered English support, fully knowing that all their data is going to the CCP to avoid the US surveillance landscape as it already is.
Five eyes disagrees with this sentiment
Where do I even begin with 20 years of emails on their servers 🤦♂️
An agent could help, but still tons of work
An agent like Gemini? 🤣
Use free Gemini to move off Gmail, double damage
Today is GrapheneOS day for me.
And if they ever try to take that away, I’ll get a fucking dumb flip phone and that’ll be that.
Open source is critical to our future.
Mine arrived today. Ironic.
Also ironic that I had to buy a pixel, but i needed a new phone so I wanted something that gos and other distros could run on
Oh don’t apologize for buying their subsidized data collection devices and then completely disabling the reason they subsidize the devices 😂
It’s a kick in the nuts to Google every time GrapheneOS is installed.
Single source hardware is a security liability. If Google does something to the hardware or firmware, the GrapheneOS project would be screwed. Google has already hobbled AOSP.
We cannot overly depend on Google’s or any one company’s good will.
I think GrapheneOS should think about gradually steering the project toward a basket of hardware companies. Shifting to Motorola is necessary in the near term, but the whole situation with Google’s behavior needs to be a wake up call.
Already, the pixel 11 line is out for graphene
They might be stuck with single source hardware from Motorola now, they announced recently there’s a good chance they can’t support the Pixel 11.
i just got a pixel 10 pro… kinda wish i had got a samsung instead now
I’m excited to see what they do with Motorola as it would be nice to pick up something newer and have my current Graphene device for backup/travel in case prices ever go wild like they seemingly have for every other piece of tech. Honestly, there’s not much reason not to run Graphene because, privacy aside, the user experience is significantly deslopified and much better than stock.
They’ve been calling Palestine “Israel” since they came out, but none of you cared. Selective outrage over a distraction by the pedophile class.
Good. And I hope he signs an executive order to rename some oceans too.
These are marginally impactful in terms of real consequences and easily undone with the next administration, but extremely visible to and unpopular with voters. Every little bit helps.
Yes, I agree. People who otherwise don’t pay a lot of attention generally think it’s really stupid, so it brings more attention to stupid things. It may be a very small thing that can be changed easily, but you’re so right. It brings a lot of attention that is not so positive for Trump and the crew.
I’m fucking done with Google Maps and their brown-nosing bullshit. Disabled it (can’t uninstall easily, otherwise I would). MapQuest from now on (or one of the other alternatives that has a spine).
Now to find a good alternative to Gmail (and go through that migration hassle). I’ve tried Proton Mail in the past. It was okay, but didn’t blow me away.
Shizuku, activated with USB debugging (if you can’t/won’t root), and Canta will let you fully remove Gmaps (and any other google shitware) pretty easily.
I even used it to remove that Android System SafetyCore app that apparently keeps reinstalling itself if you uninstall via normal methods and it hasn’t come back after roughly a year since removal so I’d say it’s a pretty effective and simple method to set up, just make sure to read the notes the Canta dev added for certain apps to make sure you aren’t going to break something you may still want.
Good info, thanks.
Shizuku is on the chopping block. One of the change requests being made to AOSP is blocking adb connections on the loopback interface, “for security”.
I like the Yelp integration with MapQuest. FlockHopper is good for finding routes that avoid flock cameras.
I use Organic Maps and CoMaps mainly. Sometime Kagi Maps and FlockHopper (not sure what I under the hood of that one though). I prefer OSM generally.
What is utter horse shit is that they care about compatibility except for this.
The fact that it broke tons of Canadian websites and Google neither cares nor bothered to investigate shows their priority of sucking up to the Trump admin over everything else.
Change your default search engine, delete Google apps that you can (I need fucking the Google app for authentication…), create a non-gmail account and start migrating to it (yes this sucks, yes it takes a long time to finish, there’s lots of degoogling info on this out there now).
Aegis authenticator work just as good as Google authenticator and you can transfer all your keys.
I have to authenticate in the Google app sometimes though, not Google Authenticator, TOTP, or a passkey
Shared from Toronto, unsure of source, still funny.
cute meme, but f*ck AI slop
You can say fuck on the internet
I’ll censor if I gddmn want to. 😏😏
Everyone spam them with map corrections!
Im doing my part .gif
That’s no surprise. The US government is really slow at getting things done
Trump’s dick cheese must be tasting pretty good considering how many people are going for it
