In a recent development, Google Maps has updated its labels to show “Lake America,” a change that has prompted U.S. President Donald Trump to urge Apple to do the same by default on all iPhones. This situation underscores the fact that many Canadian consumers and businesses are heavily reliant on U.S.-owned platforms, with limited non-American alternatives available.
Anne Pasek, a Canada Research Chair at Trent University, emphasized that Canadians are significantly impacted by American tech monopolies, which govern their digital activities and fall under U.S. jurisdiction. Several Canadian websites, including government portals and major banks, have been observed displaying maps where Lake Ontario is renamed as Lake America.
The alterations were initiated following an executive order from Trump, instructing the renaming of Lake Ontario amid trade tensions. Google implemented the change for U.S. users and provided an option for non-American websites to display the original name by configuring their maps for Canada. The company clarified that this adjustment aligns with their policy for naming bodies of water based on regional differences.
Despite the convenience provided by mapping tools from U.S. tech giants to millions of users and businesses in Canada, concerns have been raised regarding the monopolistic control exerted by these companies. These tools not only offer navigation but also support various operations on Canadian websites, including address completion, reviews, and traffic monitoring for apps like ridesharing and food delivery.
Emily Osborne from the Canadian Shield Institute highlighted the dependency of Canada on American tech firms like Google and Apple for digital services, emphasizing the need for alternative providers such as TomTom and HERE Technologies. With the recent acquisition of Avenza Systems by Blue Marble Geographics, Canada has lost a domestic mapping alternative.
Osborne expressed concerns that escalating tensions between Canada and the U.S. could lead the Trump administration to exploit other tech-related leverage points, such as payment processing and cloud storage. She cited the AWS outage as an example of how Canadian businesses relying on U.S.-owned infrastructure can face vulnerabilities in case of disruptions or restrictions imposed by governments.
The potential implications of such dependencies were underscored by Osborne, who highlighted the lack of Canadian alternatives in critical areas like credit card payments, currently dominated by Visa and MasterCard.
