In further escalation, Mexico has officially sued tech giant Google. The source of the outrage is Google’s decision to call the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. The lawsuit comes after several months of negotiation between Mexico’s Foreign Relations Ministry and Google. They asked Google to cease calling the body of water that borders their land Gulf of America, instead of naming it for the United States’s southern neighbor.
This was part of a series of upcoming lawsuits against oil companies that President Claudia Sheinbaum announced several months ago. She assured Google would continue not to rename files. Sheinbaum accompanied the announcement with a copy of a letter from Cris Turner, Google’s Vice President of Government Affairs and Public Policy. Turner said that the company plans to continue using the term Gulf of America in order to remain consistent with its long practice of maps policy throughout other regions.
The fuss started with a pronouncement by former U.S. President Donald Trump. He signed an executive order that changed the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. To this, Mexico is arguing that this executive order has no authority outside of the U.S. border. As a result, foreign governments and international bodies are under no legal obligation to accept this name change.
In their argument, Mexican officials contend that the term Gulf of America should only apply to the section of the gulf situated over the United States continental shelf. In fact, they argue that the Gulf of Mexico has been called that for more than 400 years. To change it would be a disservice to historical and geographical accuracy.
Currently, if one searches for the gulf on Google Maps, the gulf only appears as the Gulf of America in the United States. In the meantime, it’s known as the Gulf of Mexico in Mexico. Further north, offshore Louisiana for example, Google Maps now names it the Gulf of America. This discontinuity only deepens the mystery.
This legal action marks a significant step in an ongoing debate over territorial naming rights and the authority of tech companies in matters of geographical representation. Depending on the outcome, it could establish a benchmark for how digital mapping platforms should navigate these controversies going forward.
