“Lake America” labels are live on Google Maps, and U.S. President Donald Trump wants Apple to follow suit with the navigation app preinstalled on every iPhone.
Tech industry experts say the situation highlights an uncomfortable reality for many Canadian consumers and businesses: they’re effectively “locked in” to these U.S.-owned platforms, with few, if any, viable non-American alternatives.
“Canadians really do live under the shadow of American tech monopolies, and we often forget that this is a fact until there are these moments of controversy,” said Anne Pasek, Canada Research Chair in Media, Culture and the Environment at Trent University in Peterborough, Ont.”Our digital lives, and a lot of our life that extends from that, falls under the jurisdiction of American companies, and therefore American law.”Some Canadian websites, including federal government sites and some of the country’s largest banks, have recently displayed maps with Lake Ontario renamed Lake America.
The changes follow an executive order from Trump directing the U.S. federal government to officially rename one of the Great Lakes separating the two countries amid an increasingly bitter trade war.
Google made the change for users in the U.S. and introduced an option for non-American websites to display the label “Lake Ontario” by localizing their maps and setting their region to Canada.
“These updates follow our long-standing policy for bodies of water with names that vary from country,” the company stated on Saturday.
U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told Fox Business on Monday that Trump contacted Apple to request that Lake Ontario be changed to Lake America on its apps. Apple has not responded to multiple requests for comment from CBC News.
Beyond providing real-time directions to millions of users, mapping tools from U.S. tech giants are woven into the websites and operations of scores of Canadian businesses.
They provide hours of operation, contact information, reviews and other critical details. Behind the scenes, they help e-commerce sites auto-complete addresses and allow rideshare and food-delivery apps to monitor traffic and road construction.
“There is a pretty clear monopoly,” Pasek said. “Folks are locked in.”
