Google reclassifies U.S. as ‘sensitive country’ alongside China, Russia after Trump’s ‘Gulf of America’ comments
Jaque Silva | Nurphoto | Getty Images
Google‘s maps division on Monday reclassified the U.S. as a “sensitive country,” a designation it reserves for states with strict governments and border disputes, CNBC has learned.
The new classification for the U.S. came after President Donald Trump said his administration would make name changes on official maps and federal communications. Those changes include renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America” and renaming Mount Denali as Mount McKinley.
Google’s order to stop designating the U.S. as a “non-sensitive” country came on Monday, according to internal correspondence viewed by CNBC. That’s when the company announced it would change the name of the body of water between the Yucatan and Florida peninsulas to the “Gulf of America” in Google Maps after the Trump administration updates its “official government sources.”
The decision to elevate the U.S. to its list of sensitive countries illustrates the challenges that tech companies face as they try to navigate the early days of a second Trump presidency. Since the start of the year, Meta, TikTok, Amazon and others have adjusted their products and policies to reflect Trump’s political views, policies and executive orders.
Trump had a rocky relationship with Silicon Valley throughout his first presidency and didn’t shy away from criticizing the sector throughout his 2024 campaign. More recently, tech executives, including Google CEO Sundar Pichai, have pursued closer ties with Trump, with several standing behind the president during his inauguration.
Google’s list of sensitive countries includes China, Russia, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Iraq, among others. The label is also used for countries that have “unique geometry or unique labeling,” according to internal correspondence reviewed by CNBC.
The U.S. and Mexico are new additions.
The “sensitive” classification is a technical configuration that signifies some labels within a given country are different from other countries, a company spokesperson told CNBC.
It’s unclear if Google’s reclassification of the U.S. extends beyond its “Geo” division.
In this photo illustration, the Gulf of Mexico is displayed on the Google Maps app on Jan. 28, 2025 in San Anselmo, California.
Justin Sullivan | Getty Images
With more than 2 billion monthly users, Google Maps is the world’s top navigation app.
Some team members within the maps division were ordered to urgently make changes to the location name and recategorize the U.S. from “non-sensitive” to “sensitive,” according to the internal correspondence. The changes were given a rare “P0” order, meaning it had the highest priority level and employees were immediately notified and instructed to drop what they were doing to work on it.
Google’s order states that the Gulf of America title change should be treated similar to the Persian Gulf, which in Arab countries is displayed on Google Maps as Arabian Gulf.
“We’ve received a few questions about naming within Google Maps,” the company said in an X post. “We have a longstanding practice of applying name changes when they have been updated in official government sources.”
Google added that the name Gulf of Mexico will remain displayed for users in Mexico. Users in other countries will see both names, the company said.
When the Obama administration changed the name of the Alaska mountain from Mount McKinley to Denali in August 2015, Google updated Maps to reflect the name change, a Google spokesperson told CNBC.
WATCH: Twenty years in, Google Maps turns to AI to maintain dominance
(L-R) Priscilla Chan, CEO of Meta and Facebook Mark Zuckerberg, and Lauren Sanchez attend the inauguration ceremony before Donald Trump is sworn in as the 47th US President in the US Capitol Rotunda in Washington, DC, on January 20, 2025.
Saul Loeb | Afp | Getty Images
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg praised the Trump administration for backing Silicon Valley on a call with investors, adding that 2025 will be big for “redefining” the company’s relationships with governments.
“We now have a U.S. administration that is proud of our leading companies, prioritizes American technology winning and that will defend our values and interests abroad,” Zuckerberg said Wednesday. “I am optimistic about the progress and innovation that this can unlock, so this is going to be a big year.”
Meta on Wednesday also agreed to pay $25 million to settle a lawsuit with President Donald Trump, according to NBC News. Trump sued Meta after the company suspended his Facebook and Instagram accounts following the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Zuckerberg and Meta have made several public efforts to smooth over relations with President Donald Trump since his victory in November. The company donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund late last year, weeks after Zuckerberg dined with him privately at his Mar-a-Lago resort.
Earlier this month, Zuckerberg announced that Meta would eliminate third-party fact-checking to “restore free expression” to the company’s platforms. He said the fact-checkers had been “too politically biased” and “destroyed more trust than they’ve created, especially in the U.S.”
The move was widely recognized as a nod to Trump, as he and other Republicans have long claimed that Meta’s platforms like Facebook and Instagram censor conservative views. Zuckerberg and Trump have had an especially rocky relationship in the past, as Trump has previously threatened the tech executive with life in prison.
The company also elevated Joel Kaplan, former White House deputy chief of staff under President George W. Bush with longstanding ties to the Republican Party, to its chief policy role earlier this month.
Zuckerberg’s public concessions appear to be earning him some good will, as he attended Trump’s inauguration alongside other tech moguls like Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos this month.
Shares of Meta were up slightly in extended trading Wednesday after the company reported fourth-quarter earnings that beat Wall Street’s expectations on top and bottom lines.
–CNBC’s Jonathan Vanian contributed to this report
WATCH: Meta beats on top and bottom lines, stock slips on Q1 revenue guidance
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta Platforms, demonstrates the Meta Quest Pro during the virtual Meta Connect event in New York on Oct. 11, 2022.
Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Meta continues to lose billions of dollars developing the virtual reality and augmented reality technologies needed to underpin the nascent metaverse.
The social media giant reported fourth-quarter earnings Wednesday and said its Reality Labs unit recorded an operating loss of $4.97 billion while generating $1.1 billion in sales. Analysts were projecting that unit to log a fourth-quarter operating loss of $5.4 billion on $1.1 billion in sales.
Reality Labs is Meta’s unit that makes the Quest family of virtual-reality headsets and Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg kick-started his company’s VR endeavors in 2014 when it acquired the startup Oculus for $2 billion. Since then, Zuckerberg has characterized VR and AR as central to his plans to develop the futuristic digital world known as the metaverse, which he has said represent the next major computing platform.
Wall Street has questioned Zuckerberg’s metaverse investment. Reality Labs has tallied an operating loss of more than $60 billion since 2020, as of Meta’s fourth-quarter earnings report.
Meta last week said it would invest between $60 billion and $65 billion in 2025 capital expenditures to expand its computing infrastructure related to artificial intelligence. Zuckerberg has previously said AI is core to the company’s metaverse efforts, including its Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses. Meta develops that device with France-based EssilorLuxottica.
The social media company last year also unveiled its Orion prototype AR headset that is capable of overlaying digital objects on top of a person’s real field of view.
Meta released its latest VR headset, the $299 Quest 3S, during its September Connect event and pitched the device as a way for people to watch movies, play games and workout in VR.
Other tech companies are also investing in VR and AR.
Apple’s Vision Pro headset went on sale in the U.S. in February 2024 with a starting price of $3,499, and in December, Google and Samsung said they were working on a VR and AR device dubbed Project Moohan that will be available to buy in 2025 for an undisclosed price.
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