Summary
Google has reclassified the U.S. as a “sensitive country” following Trump’s announcement to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America” and Mount Denali as Mount McKinley.
The designation, typically reserved for nations with border disputes or strict governments, reflects the growing challenges tech companies face under Trump’s second term.
Google Maps has prioritized updating these name changes, treating them similarly to disputed regions like the Persian Gulf.
The reclassification may impact how Google handles U.S. geographic labels moving forward.
This reminds of how when the unicode consortium had to add flag emojis, instead of opening the can of worms on what countries are independent or not, they just noped out of it and let the implementers decide which combinations of regional indicator letters render as country flags.