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Updated to add Google’s clarification.
Investing.com-- Google’s Maps division reclassified the U.S. as a “sensitive country,” adding it to a listing including dozens of other countries, CNBC reported on Tuesday.
Google said in a social media post that the report was "misleading," and that the classification was "used in our internal systems for countries that see different official names in Maps (like a different name for a body of water)."
Google said the classification was common practice and included dozens of countries.
The new classification comes as President Donald Trump called for a slew of name changes on official U.S. maps, most notably renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America” and Alaska’s Mount Denali as Mount McKinley.
CNBC had reported on Monday that Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) would rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America in Google Maps after the Trump administration updates its designations.
That was also when Google had decided to designate the U.S. as a sensitive country, as the company navigates the early days of a second Trump presidency, the CNBC report said.
“We’ve received a few questions about naming within Google Maps. We have a longstanding practice of applying name changes when they have been updated in official government sources,” Google said in a post on X.
Google Maps is the most used navigation software in the world, with over 2 billion monthly users.
The company’s peers, including Meta (NASDAQ:META), TikTok, Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), and others, have also adjusted their products and policies to reflect Trump’s political views.
Several major companies announced an end to diversity, equity and inclusion-based programs, mirroring executive orders from Trump doing the same for government agencies.