Is this good for a freer world? Perhaps not. Is this better for everyone’s bottom lines? Most definitely.

Source: I run a map company. (For now, we default to the boundaries as defined in OSM and include the data regarding disputed boundaries, which can by styled our customers as they wish.)

Addendum: Google is one of those multi-national companies. If they choose to only display the lines as the UN would draw them, they would not have a market in many countries.

By the way, if you want the official map of Pakistan, it's released by the Survey of Pakistan here[2].

Edit: I want to point out that Pakistan literally bans any website arbitrarily. YouTube was banned for three years in Pakistan[3], and social media websites have been banned many times in the past including (ostensibly) to chill coverage of protests[4]. It isn't too far-fetched to imagine a Pakistan without Google Maps if Google doesn't play nice.

[0]: https://tribune.com.pk/story/1163447/google-maps-shows-azad-...

[1]: https://tribune.com.pk/story/1262447/pakistan-protest-world-...

[2]: http://www.surveyofpakistan.gov.pk/images/downloads/pak3m.pd...

[3]: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-pakistan-youtube/pakistan...

[4]: https://digitalrightsfoundation.pk/press-release-drf-and-net...

(The average cartographer isn't working on maps intended for consumption everywhere...)

I don't know how Google maps compares to other online maps.

> as if they are doing this with bad intent

I didn't really read any implications of "bad intent" here, but rather indifference or callousness regarding these issues.

Now, if that same map was to be distributed in one of the disputing countries, that's another story, and even representing disputedness can be illegal.

Since Google wants to distribute their maps globally, they can either show the "correct" maps, or block access from people in countries with disputed borders. Their business model being what it is, they chose to redraw maps when necessary.

I can't think of any circumstance where i want a multinational corporation to be making decisions about where disputed borders are drawn.

Red Hat/Fedora "no flags" policy: https://lwn.net/Articles/333623/

Resignation of an important Debian kernel maintainer because a flag of Taiwan is included in a Debian package: https://lwn.net/Articles/86925/ https://lwn.net/Articles/86923/

I don't think this article has good reporting, because it suggests that the company has some hidden agenda, when really all it's doing is complying with local laws.

And there is no difference even. In the past you could take a paper map drawn by A and showing a disputed border between A & B to B and show them.

Nowadays you can spoof your GPS and/or IP to purport you are at A (although your are at B) and see the map people at A are commonly shown.

The whole situation, managing border depictions worldwide, is a rathole. You just can't win.

This, in a nutshell. Some border disputes are straightforward, and choosing one depiction over the other could be considered ethically better than choosing the other depiction. Other disputes are intractable without just displaying based on the worldview of the viewer.

By picking a side, you can't do any business in a country, often. By showing the worldview (or legally mandated worldview) of the viewer, you abide by local law and don't have to worry about your employees being arrested.

Pick your fights and your venues wisely. :)

7-year jail, Rs 100 crore fine soon for showing PoK, Arunachal as disputed

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-natio...

Edit to add another one:

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/3ddmzv/if-youre-a-foreign...

According to Sohu, China's surveying administration investigated and handled nearly 40 cases of "foreign illegal surveying and mapping" since 2006. An amendment proposed last year to the national law on surveying would impose fines and jail time for makers of maps that “fail to demonstrate China’s complete territory.”

I know this because I’ve been in a team dealing with exactly this set of issues.

As much as anything Google’s map borders are about good customer service.

It would be great if instead they had a deterministic way of looking at it. For example give an easy way to anyone to select a different "perception" for the map borders.

There must be a line though. I certainly wouldn't want laws in my country to force Wikipedia to alter facts based on my location. I suppose it's possible that's already happening.

I think that’s the point. This is impossible. The only way the entire world agrees on every single boundary is, barring world peace another way, a single world government.

That’s simply not the world we live in or do business in.

Also, this isn’t, shall we say, dressing up the pig. It’s two, potentially legitimate, competing claims to the same piece of ground. There is, in many cases, not a single “this is the valid claim.” And perhaps the fact we’re fighting over how the lines are drawn is an indication things are better than they used to be? (Because those competitors aren’t all at war over those lines and we aren’t drawing them all as war zones.)

[0] http://www.cbic.gov.in/resources//htdocs-cbec/customs/forms_...

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22337891

"Gun boat diplomacy" comes to mind

You mean, do you force your moral viewpoints on the rest of the world? I would have figured that the last 500 years of colonization showed the issue with viewing one's own morals as superior to the rest of the world.

What they're looking for, and some corporations are willing to provide, is the appearance of endorsement by external authorities for their political stance. Anyone in the country who disputes the border layout can be 'refuted' with 'just check Google, that proves the border runs thus and so.'

I don't know what side to take on England vs Ireland, India vs Pakistan, Russia vs Ukraine, and dozens of others around the world (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_territorial_disputes )

So I'm not quick to judge. I don't even know if there exists an ethical and moral answer to these questions.

Exactly the same outcome just without Google. Its a bit of a Pyrrhic victory to withdraw from those markets on ethical grounds.

1) A (public) company’s first duty is to increase shareholder value, ergo, you take the cash.

2) That company wouldn’t have any influence on those millions if they aren’t in the market, so the point is moot. They’re either in the market under the constraints by the governing body or they aren’t in the market.

I’m not saying this is how I think the world should work; I am saying this is how it does work.

Unfortunately that’s precious few public companies.

I am sort of speechless. You advocate people taking up arms against their government all upon advice of "high morals" spread by corporations.

They have to do it in an ethical way, sure. But there's also the practical reality of which country the region is affiliated with, and what was the voice of the people living in said region. Denying this voice, just because it hasn't been recognised internationally, is not the sort of activism that for-profit companies should be engaged in.

I might call that "delusion of grandeur by proxy"...