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GoogleThe maps department learned on Monday the United States as a “sensitive country”, a designation it maintains for countries with strict governments and border conflicts, CNBC learned.
The new classification of the United States came after President Donald Trump said that his administration would make the name on official maps and federal communications. These changes include the renames of the Gulf of Mexico as “the Gulf of America” and the rename of Mount Denali in the role of Mount McKinley.
Google ordered to stop appointing the United States as a “non -sensitive” country on Monday, according to the internal correspondence seen by CNBC. And that is when the company announced that it would change the name of the water body between the Yousan and Florida Peninsula to the “Gulf of America” in Google Maps after the Trump administration updated “its official government sources.”
The decision to raise the United States to the list of sensitive countries show the challenges facing technology companies because they are trying to move in the early days of Trump’s second presidency. Since the beginning of the year, DeadTiktok, Amazon Others have amended their products and policies to reflect Trump’s political views, policies and executive orders.
Trump has been a rocky relationship with Silicon Valley throughout his first presidency and was not ashamed to criticize the sector throughout his campaign for 2024. In recent times, the executives of technology, including the CEO of Google Sundar Pichai, have been closer relationships with Trump, with many president behind the president During its inauguration.
The Google menu for sensitive countries includes China, Russia, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and others. The poster is also used for countries with “unique engineering or unique signs”, according to the internal correspondence reviewed by CNBC.
The United States and Mexico are new additions.
A company spokesman told CNBC that the “sensitive” classification is a technical formation indicating some signs within a particular country that differs from other countries.
It is not clear whether Google’s re -classification of the United States extends beyond its “geographical” division.
In this image clarification, the Gulf of Mexico is displayed on the Google Maps application on January 28, 2025 in San Anissaelo, California.
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With more than 2 billion monthly usersGoogle Maps are the world summit Mobility application.
Some team members were requested within the maps section to make changes urgently on the name of the site and to redress the United States from “non -sensitive” to “sensitive”, according to internal correspondence. The changes were given a rare “P0” order, which means that it had a higher priority level, and the employees were notified immediately and directed to drop what they are doing to work on.
Google command states that changing the title of the Gulf of America must be treated similar to the Persian Gulf, which is presented in the Arab countries on Google Maps as the Arabian Gulf.
“We have received some questions about the designation inside Google Maps,” the company said. X post. “We have a long -term practice to apply names changes when updated in official government sources.”
Google added that the name GULF of Mexico will remain displayed for users in Mexico. The company said that users in other countries will see both of the names.
When the Obama administration changed the name Alaska Mountain from Mount McKinley to Denali in August 2015, Updated Google Maps To reflect the name change, tell a Google CNBC spokesman.
